What is Catalog Updates and why should I use it…
Catalog Updates is a feature in Custom Updates Publishing Tool (CUPT) and System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP) that allows you to maintain a list of catalogs. This list of catalog gains you two things, first the ability to detect when a catalog is updated by the vendor and secondly the ability to bulk import all of your catalogs in one single import session.
To use this feature you will need to add catalogs to your Catalog Updates list, there are two ways to do this. The first is to manually add them (Click on “Settings -> Add” on Import List tab). This will bring up a form where you can enter the catalog information. The second option is to automatically add them with the “Discover and Add External Catalogs” feature (Click on “Settings -> Find” on the Import List tab). This option will find all the partner catalogs that are included in the Microsoft catalog (http://www.microsoft.com/smserver/partners/itcucat.mspx).
After adding the catalogs to your Catalog Updates list you can now detect when they are updated. To do this you hit the refresh button on the “Catalog Updates” control in the center pain. You can also configure CUPT/SCUP to automatically check for new catalogs every time you start the program (Click on “Settings -> Automatically check for updates to my catalogs on startup” on the Import List tab).
Lastly, now that you have catalogs in your Catalog Updates list you can bulk import them by simply clicking on the “Import” action. You will see on the first page “Bulk Catalog Import” option is now enabled.
