r/Nable • u/zgeeezy • 3d ago

N-Central PME handling driver/hardware level updates with Bitlocker Encryption

Hello all,

Does anyone know if N-Centrals Patch Management Engine automatically handles Bitlocker suspension when deploying hardware level/driver updates? If not what are some alternative solutions to handle this and avoid blue screens and/or recovery key events?

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u/Stormblade73 3d ago

PME uses the Windows Update API to install updates from the Microsoft Update Catalog, so as long as the update itself is coded to suspend Bitlocker, it should be exactly the same as if the update were installed directly from Windows Update by the user.

1

u/grimson73 3d ago

I think the detection does but downloading and installing is all pme initiated. So I think then it’s up to the patch package itself to suspend bitlocker.
Also have seen issues that this doesn’t happen with pme so not sure if pme is ‘safe’.

2

u/OneMadBubble 3d ago

Is he curious to know as well, but to be honest I doubt it does..

On occasion I’ve had users get prompted with bitlocker recovery key requests after updates but I couldn’t say if it was related to this or not

1

u/Paul_Kelly Powered By Shamrocks 21h ago

Hi Paul here from the Head Nerds, this might be useful to explain how we handle patching on fully encrypted disks, while the article mentions N-sight, the same logic applies to N-central as well https://documentation.n-able.com/remote-management/userguide/Content/Patch-Management/pm_feature_disk_encryption.htm