How to verify whether a patch has been applied in 11i

There are several known ways for checking whether a patch (simple patch, patchset, family pack or minipack or maintenance pack) has been applied in the Oracle 11i E-Business Suite.

However in these "several" ways, what is the best method which is also suppored by Oracle Support ?

Yesterday i was doing patch analysis for installing Oracle Support Diagnostics 2.5 product (IZU) in our 11.5.10.2 production system. It listed 11i.ATG_PF.H.4 (Rollup 4) as the prequisite. So i downloaded patchsets.sh (the Oracle Patch Comparision utility) and ran the script to find the current Running Versions in our system for patchsets and family packs.

It listed 11i.ATG_PF.H(3438354) as the Running Version and 11i.ATG_PF.H.5(5473858) (Rel-By_Metalink) as the 'Latest Available' one in the Report_11i.txt output file.

 

So as per the patchsets.sh tool, there is no 11i.ATG_PF.H.4 (4676589) in our system. I went ahead with my patch analysis only to know later that '11i.ATG_PF.H.4' has indeed been applied to our system.

AD_PATCH_DRIVERS shows 4676589, whereas patchsets.sh does not show this is applied !! though Metalink Note 162524.1 shows either method is OK.

4 Different methods as per Metalink for finding patch information in 11i

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) patchsets.sh (Patch Comparision Tool)

2) AD_PATCH_DRIVERS table

3) Two reports adphrept.sql (patch history) and adfhrept.sql(file

history) in $AD_TOP directory

4) Login to Oracle Applications Manager (OAM) => Applied Patches => Simple Search by 'Patch ID)

What is the best method out of the 4 above ?

---------------------------------------------

Finding patch history through OAM is the best method. It is easy to use and it has a web-based interface. AD_PATCH_DRIVERS too is good if you want to write a SQL statement.

What does the Documentation say ?

----------------------------------

According to the 'AD Maintenance Utilities' PDF for 11.5.10.2 , OAM is the best method for finding patch history.