I have slowly been loosing my confidence in this wonderful little file.
Over the last few months, and after several patching sessions, I have
come to find out that the HPSWINFO file just doesn't seem to hold the
true info about what is on the system.

I have a case where I am keeping two systems up on the same level of
patches, but when I went to the file to determine if a particular patch
had been placed on the box, the file said that it was not, but Patch/iX
wouldn't let me qualify the patch, because it WAS installed on the
system.

So, we have a case where the patch was on the system, but was not listed
in the file.

Next, I just found, via a system abort, that a patch that I though was
on my system, and HPSWINFO states is on the system, isn't.   Well, let
me backup a little.  A problem hit that was supposed to be covered by a
patch.  When I said that it was on the system, HP replied that they
would need to check to be sure that it really was on the system.

So, we have a case where it is in HPSWINFO, and even HP is not sure that
it really is on the system.

What good is this file if the information in it could be bogus?  How do
I determine what patches are on the system and which ones are not on the
system?  Patch/iX does some type of check summing to do this.  Is this
something that I can perform on my own, without HP?  How do I KNOW what
is on my machines?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Kevin "No longer sure what is on my machine" Newman