HPQflash vs SSM for bios updates

[paul-p]

The user guide for SSM states "HP recommends that all BIOS firmware updates use HPQFlash as the installation mechanism. SSM now supports running HPQFlash and passes the setup password, if any, in an encrypted file." 

(from https://ftp.hp.com/pub/caps-softpaq/cmit/HP_SSM.html)

For automated deployments of bios updates, what is recommended? HPQflash run through SSM , run HPQflash directly? 

[mdklassen]

> run HPQflash directly? 

How does one circumvent the interactive prompts from this program, e.g., "do you want to backup the current BIOS before starting" and/or "confirm that you want to replace version 1.23 by version 1.24" or "the new BIOS is not compatible with this motherboard -- are you sure that you want to proceed" ?

Or, how to check for "BIOS update not successful" ?

[paul-p]

The silent command line option "-s" avoids the interactive prompts. The help option -? lists a "force" update that would probably take care of your incompatible case, but that seems like a really bad idea. A log file is created in the same directory with hpqflash that shows the status.