this is a restriction imposed by the product vendors: Apple, Adobe, Oracle,et. al., and not anything that SolarWinds has any control over.
I'm not certain how the other vendors got around this, but they have. I watched one publish Adobe Flash to Configuration Manager without going through a manual download process. Seems to me that if my company has an active agreement with Adobe, there's no reason why Patch Manager couldn't download those files automatically.
Each patch was easy to find and select (no EXE, MSI, ZIP, and other various iterations). You could select certain classifications of updates to automatically publish to ConfigMgr. And there was still the ability to modify various options if necessary.
Apple doesn't make the binaries for Apple Application Support or Apple Mobile Device Support available as individual downloads, so those files must be extracted from the iTunesSetup.exe.
No they certainly don't. Certainly, however, there must be a way to programmaticly do this. Patch Manager can download iTunesSetup.exe, why couldn't it extract it and select the necessary file as well.
To be sure, it's the FILE associated with the package that is or is not signed, and that, also, is a function of the individual product vendors
On the verge of sounded like a broken record... just image how much better of an experience to your customers it would be if you could program and process to handle this for them. I'd be willing to add my own code signing certificate and if Patch Manager could handle this for me it would be a good deal less work each month.
And on the experience soap box again... The product feels strongly like a WSUS product that has been ported to work with ConfigMgr (which it is). Still... the experience could be made better without making it a separate product. Certain options just don't apply to ConfigMgr or offer you little benefit and yet you still see these in the setup and configuration.
