Hi folks:

This is an important message for anyone who downloads MPE/iX patches from
the HP Electronic Support Center. It describes a serious problem customers
have experienced with patch MPEKXK7C related to the MOVER utility, and what
we in the software delivery area at Hewlett Packard plan to do about it.

Some background: The UNPACKP script - which customers use on the HP3000 to
unbundle a downloaded patch into it's file components - has always used the
HP MOVER utility to accomplish the unpackaging (conversely, MOVER is used at
HP's end to create these bundles.) Some time ago we found that at least one
version of MOVER contains a bug causing it to damage certain ISL utility
components of a patch (UPDATE, for example). In light of this problem we
have a standing policy of excluding any patch with ISL utilities from going
to the HP ESC web site until we have a fix in place.

Just to make sure everyone knows, we plan to fix the problem by replacing
MOVER for packaging patches with the Store-to-Disk function of STORE/RESTORE
- the reasoning being: 1) STORE is a supported utility available on all
MPE/iX systems and 2) that any version of STORE can "restore" a
Store-to-disk file.

The bad news is: 1) it is taking us a LOT longer than we had hoped to put
this MOVER to STORE-to-disk conversion in place, and 2) to make things
worse, a 6.0 patch containing ISL components, MPEKXK7C, recently "slipped"
out to the HP ESC site. MPEKXK7 contains among other things the UPDATE PME,
which is damaged by the MOVER utility. If you attempt to install this
downloaded patch, the UPDATE from tape will fail with a FLT 1009 message.

The good news here is that because UPDATE itself is damaged, the process can
go no further in installing the bad patch. Also, it is important to note
that we have found absolutely no instances of further corruption related to
the MOVER utility, and we have enough data on the problem at this point to
strongly suspect that "hidden" corruption is not an issue.

So what are we doing about it? We have removed the offending patch from the
HP ESC web site, and are taking additional steps to insure that no further
patches containing ISL utility files will go to HP ESC in the short term. In
addition, we are escalating the priority of the MOVER to Store-to-disk
conversion. When we have a more solidified schedule, I will make another
announcement here.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by this issue.

Regards,

Michael Dovano
MPE/iX OS Patch and Installation
Commercial Systems Division, Hewlett-Packard
19447 Pruneridge Avenue
Cupertino, CA 95014
E-mail: [log in to unmask]