Question about Group Policy software deployment

[sidewinder]

This is probably fairly simple but I will ask anyway

When you use group policy to deply MSI's. it installs, and then on subsequent reboots, it detects that the product is already installed, and skips it

But why, when I have taken an image after software is installed, and then gone through sysprep, does the software reinstall over the top of itself? Yes the PC name and SID are different but why can it not detect the exact same software is already installed? What does it look at to detirmine if a machine needs the software?

And is there a way to stop this happening? I could take images without any MSI packages I suppose but theres a chance a GPO could get removed from an OU and when a machine was imaged it would be missing software

[SYNACK]

There is no way that I have found of preventing this behavior, the reinstall is often quicker as it does not actually have to write the files just check that they are there and the correct size and version.

[marco84]

was the software you installed on the image PC done via software deployment?

[sidewinder]

Oh ok thats not too bad then, I thought it was going through and reinstalling it all

marco yes it was. I can see why it might reinstall if the software had been installed locally

[marco84]

I only ask because i think even if the software was installed by the same msi, but not through software deployment it wouldnt reconginse it as the same software and therefor attempt to install it again.

[cookie_monster]

The group policy relies on time stamps and needs to start in the same OU with the same GPO each time, when you sysprep the PC and then add it to the domain it thinks there are new apps to install. As SYNACK says it usually just goes through checking that it's the same version and runs a repair but if you ever remove that app from the GPO and deploy a later version you will see the old version listed as it won't remove the old windows installer information that was there before you joined the domain.

The best way around this problem is to image your OS without software and then have it deploy once you join the network.

[sidewinder]

Yeah, migth well have to try that
Ive always used MSI's but its not until recently Ive made an effort getting all the common stuff like Smartboard, Shockwave, Net Framework etc to install through them

Problem is some of my colleague are very stuck in their ways, changing something like this could end up being pretty frustrating. Eg they will never remember to not install certain things locally, or they wont trust it and insist on installing things on the image

[cookie_monster]

TBH we gave up using imaging software a while back RIS / WDS is so much simpler if you have the right cards or PXE bootable ones, even using a flat image on reasonable spec PC's doesn't take all that long and your clients are under the control of group policy right from the off.

[sidewinder]

I can see the advantages, but there is still too much software that isnt MSI'able
Its easy to create them for some packages but some are so poorly written it would be impossible.
Although I could most deployable, the odd package might not matter

We have just paid about £5k for Ghost licences though so I better use it for a while yet

[cookie_monster]

Yep i suppose that's a good enough reason :-)