Extended and Previous Extended subscriptions now say :Do not use - Please use a Fixed Extended package

Hello ChrisHurd,

can't remember when I've first noticed it ... at the least quite a few weeks ago. Lately the list of products ("Platform") has been pruned - Unix is gone (not clear why and whether perhaps forever). The Fixed Extended versions (and 119216 as well) refer to 121139: End of life for Sophos Anti-Virus fixed version packages. so it looks like there has been (again) a change for "Advanced Licenses".

Christian

Hello ChrisHurd,

can't remember when I've first noticed it ... at the least quite a few weeks ago. Lately the list of products ("Platform") has been pruned - Unix is gone (not clear why and whether perhaps forever). The Fixed Extended versions (and 119216 as well) refer to 121139: End of life for Sophos Anti-Virus fixed version packages. so it looks like there has been (again) a change for "Advanced Licenses".

Christian

Hi,

I've been onto Sophos Support about this, and yes, Sophos have indeed changed the way they distribute updates again, although it seemed that only a few people in sophos support knew about this, let alone understood it when I first raised this with them, but eventually I did get to speak to someone who did seem to know about this.

From these discussions, it appears the preview, recommended, and previous recommended subscriptions are staying as they were, but the extended and previous extended are being discontinued, and replaced by thes new, so-called 'Fixed Extended' subscriptions.

Since I discussed this with Sophos, and explained the issues with their documentation on this, KB 121139 appears to have now been updated, (latest update 7th Apr 2016 at time of writing this), and this is now a bit clearer, once you know what's happening, but it still gets the old 'fixed' version and new 'Fixed Extended' version concepts mixed up, using the former in the title, but the latter later on. 

This kind of gives the impression that this KB is either about the retirement from use of the old fixed version way of doing things, and that the old fixed versions and new fixed extended versions are the same, but they are not.  In essence, this is basically a calandar of release dates for new fixed Extended versions to replace older Fixed Extended versions, just like the calendar for the preview, recommended, and previous recommended subscriptions.

From everyting I've found so far, it basically looks as though Sophos have brought back fixed versions, in a limited way, for larger organisations wanting/needing to manage roll-outs of new versions of the client software in a way that is more under the control of the local IT, rather than being pushed by Sophos, in the form of these 'Fixed Extended' subscriptions. 

There's still elements of Sophos pushing updates out, as if you don't update within the specified time frame, it looks like it will still just do it for you, but I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, as it prevents end-user organisations hanging onto older versions for ever, which was the point of Sophos moving to the preview/recommended/extended method of doing things in the first place.

This is all well and good up to a point, but unfortunately even though the above KB states the 'retirement' dates for the current out going Fixed Extended versions, they still don't appear as options in my Enterprise Console's, (v.5.3), subscription selection options as yet.

Hope this is of some benefit to anyone else getting the message that their extended and previous extended subscriptions are being retired, and to use a Fixed Extended package instead, (even though they do not currently seem to be available).

This will be an answer to my own question once these 'Fixed Extended' versions appear! 

Yeah, I could really use one of those "fixed extended" options right now, but my EC 5.5 shows nothing of the sort.

Hello GreyDuck,

in the console under Tools → Configure Use of Fixed Packages ...

Christian

AHA! Thank you, thank you.

Maybe I have a shot at managing the next round of updates to Recommended...