The Upgrade Compatibility Tool is a mandatory part of the ePO upgrade process. It confirms that only compatible extensions are present immediately before an ePO upgrade. The tool depends on up-to-date information listed in the
ProductCompatibilityList.xml. This information is both bundled with the tool itself and also kept up-to-date and hosted by McAfee at
https://epo.mcafee.com/ProductCompatibilityList.xml.
The Upgrade Compatibility Tool uses the version bundled within the installer. This version is likely to be older and contains outdated information.
This mismatch can be seen when you compare the hosted version in scenarios where the ePO server:
- Is air-gapped.
- Does not have outside access to the internet.
- Does not have outside access to the file linked above.
If the outdated
ProductCompatibilityList.xml does not block a specific incompatible extension on the targeted ePO version, the upgrade is allowed to continue.
This design results in a disabled extension when the upgrade completes. When trying to update the disabled extensions, it fails when the extensions are installed in a bundle. (For example, Host Intrusion Prevention.) This failure is because the extension compatibility logic looks at dependencies against the ones that are currently installed.
