Does anyone know where I can find a utility to read these wonderful little things from Microsoft. I can read them in WinZip and thought well I could use Archive::Zip to open them and get the information out of the file. But this errors when trying to open the file.

The Error

C:\Patch_Adams\scripts>hotfix_update.pl
IO error: opening c:/Patch_Adams/Patches/Windows2000-KB824146-x86-ENU.
+exe for re
ad : No such file or directory
        Archive::Zip::Archive::read('Archive::Zip::Archive=HASH(0x2f48
+95c)','c:/
Patch_Adams/Patches/Windows2000-KB824146-x86-ENU.exe') called at C:\Pa
+tch_Adams\
scripts\hotfix_update.pl line 83
        main::Add_Hotfix('Windows2000-KB824146-x86-ENU.exe','win2k') c
+alled at C
:\Patch_Adams\scripts\hotfix_update.pl line 177
read error at C:\Patch_Adams\scripts\hotfix_update.pl line 83.
[download]

The Code

use strict;
use Win32::ODBC;
use Archive::Zip qw( :ERROR_CODES :CONSTANTS );

our $PATCH_PATH ="c:/Patch_Adams/Patches/";
our $DSN = "scanner";
our $TABLE = "hotfixes";
our @valid_os = ("nt4wk","nt4sv","win2k","winxp","w2003");


sub Check_Array(\@\@){
    my ($installed_ref , $hotfix_ref) = @_;
    my %installed = ();
    my @ready2install = ();
    foreach my $hotfix (@{$hotfix_ref}){$installed{$hotfix}=1}
    foreach my $hotfix (@{$installed_ref}){
        unless ($installed{$hotfix}){
            push (@ready2install , $hotfix);
        }
    }
    return @ready2install;
}


sub Add_Hotfix($$){
    my ($hotfix , $os) = @_;
    my $zip = Archive::Zip->new();
    die 'read error' unless $zip->read("${PATCH_PATH}${hotfix}") == AZ
+_OK;

}

my (@installed_nt4wk , @installed_nt4sv , @installed_win2k , @installe
+d_w2003 , @installed_winxp);
my (@hotfix_nt4wk , @hotfix_nt4sv , @hotfix_win2k , @hotfix_w2003 , @h
+otfix_winxp);
my (@ready_nt4wk , @ready_nt4sv , @ready_win2k, @ready_w2003 , @ready_
+winxp);


foreach my $os (@valid_os){
    my $path_os = "${PATCH_PATH}${os}";
    opendir (DIR, $path_os) or die "$!: Can not open $path_os!";
    while(defined(my $installed_hotfix = readdir(DIR))){
        next if $installed_hotfix =~/^\.\.?$/;
        chomp ($installed_hotfix);
        push (@installed_nt4wk , $installed_hotfix) if ($os eq 'nt4wk'
+);
        push (@installed_nt4sv , $installed_hotfix) if ($os eq 'nt4sv'
+);
        push (@installed_win2k , $installed_hotfix) if ($os eq 'win2k'
+);
        push (@installed_w2003 , $installed_hotfix) if ($os eq 'w2003'
+);
        push (@installed_winxp , $installed_hotfix) if ($os eq 'winxp'
+);
    }
    closedir (DIR);
}

#**  If all these directories are empty we need not run any more of th
+is 
#**  program at all.                                                  
+        

my $length_nt4wk = scalar (@installed_nt4wk);
my $length_nt4sv = scalar (@installed_nt4sv);
my $length_win2k = scalar (@installed_win2k);
my $length_w2003 = scalar (@installed_w2003);
my $length_winxp = scalar (@installed_winxp);
my $length_of_all = $length_nt4wk + $length_nt4sv + $length_win2k + $l
+ength_w2003 + $length_winxp;
die "No hotfix files are installed in directory $PATCH_PATH\n" if ($le
+ngth_of_all eq 0);

#**  Open the database and read into arrays the hotfixes for each os. 
+ 

my $db = new Win32::ODBC($DSN);
die "$! : DSN $DSN not available." if (! $db);
die "$! : there is a problem with table $TABLE" if( $db->Sql("SELECT *
+ FROM $TABLE" ));
my %hotfix_record;
while ($db->FetchRow){
    %hotfix_record = $db->DataHash("operating_system","software_name")
+;
    push (@hotfix_nt4wk, $hotfix_record{software_name}) if ($hotfix_re
+cord{operating_system} eq 'nt4wk');
    push (@hotfix_nt4sv, $hotfix_record{software_name}) if ($hotfix_re
+cord{operating_system} eq 'nt4sv');
    push (@hotfix_win2k, $hotfix_record{software_name}) if ($hotfix_re
+cord{operating_system} eq 'win2k');
    push (@hotfix_w2003, $hotfix_record{software_name}) if ($hotfix_re
+cord{operating_system} eq 'w2003');
    push (@hotfix_winxp, $hotfix_record{software_name}) 
}
$db->Close();

#**  Compare the installed arrays to the database arrays and make list
+s of
#**  hotfixes to be installed.                                        
+        

@ready_nt4wk = Check_Array (@installed_nt4wk , @hotfix_nt4wk);
@ready_nt4sv = Check_Array (@installed_nt4sv , @hotfix_nt4sv);
@ready_win2k = Check_Array (@installed_win2k , @hotfix_win2k);
@ready_w2003 = Check_Array (@installed_w2003 , @hotfix_w2003);
@ready_winxp = Check_Array (@installed_winxp , @hotfix_winxp);

#**  Loop through arrays and install hotfix files per os.             
+        


foreach my $hotfix (@ready_nt4wk){Add_Hotfix ($hotfix,$valid_os[0])}
foreach my $hotfix (@ready_nt4sv){Add_Hotfix ($hotfix,$valid_os[1])}
foreach my $hotfix (@ready_win2k){Add_Hotfix ($hotfix,$valid_os[2])}
foreach my $hotfix (@ready_winxp){Add_Hotfix ($hotfix,$valid_os[3])}
foreach my $hotfix (@ready_w2003){Add_Hotfix ($hotfix,$valid_os[4])}
[download]

Does anyone have any experience playing with these type of files or know of a module or utility that can handle this type of data. I don't want to reinvent the wheel but I am having a hard time finding information on the format of the files.

Yes I know I need to clean up most of the code but it processes the data correctly, which is my concern for now, it just will not open the .exe. For a note this is the Microsoft Hotfix files. I want to place them in a directory as approved hot fixes and read the update.ver exe which lists the files updated. I would parse this into an xml document with the file version numbers. That way I can automatically create records for my scanner to compare instead of manually entering the information.