SCCM - Software

[techie17]

Hi

 

Ive just installed and configured SCCM and noticed that the Inventoried Software node is empty and dont know why. The client is installed and is checking in to SCCM as i can see the client with a green tick in the console. Can any one help?

 

Also ive created a test application (google chrome) and deployed it to a machine which works, however when i re-image the computer with the same name the application doesn't get installed and i dont know why. Do i need to create a package rather than an Application?

 

Im new to SCCM so trying to get my head round it!

 

Thanks

[Areku]

add the machine to a collection and deploy the package to the collection ?

should be persistent though reimages.

[techie17]

add the machine to a collection and deploy the package to the collection ?

should be persistent though reimages.

Yeah done that. Its as if SCCM is recognising that the application is already installed so doesn't reinstall. Does show up in Software Center either.

[Areku]

have you tried seeing it the package is avalible in the software centre on the client?

have you tried running the "machine policy retrival and evaluation cycle" on the client. (this causes the client to check what it should have). you will find this on the configureation manager properties control panel icon, under actions

[techie17]

have you tried seeing it the package is avalible in the software centre on the client?

have you tried running the "machine policy retrival and evaluation cycle" on the client. (this causes the client to check what it should have). you will find this on the configureation manager properties control panel icon, under actions

 

Yep done that also. It still says "Devices with Application" 1 when viewing the application package but should (im guessing) be 0?

[Areku]

SCCM's software inventory does lag behind, so i wouldn't worry about that (at least for us), did software centre show the deployment?

does the deployment show on the devices properties on the server? (on the sccm console, find the device, right click, then on deployments.

[techie17]

Managed to find what the issue was. The SCCM device collection wasn't updating until i manually Updated the membership.

 

Just out of interest, how does everyone else deploy software? Im deploying some test applications out using the applications node but also want these deployed out on system re-image so would i add the applications to the task sequence?

 

Obviously not all computers would want certain curriculum applications so would it be best to create a device collect and assign the required computers to this? Or possibly create a computer group, put the computers in this and then add a filter in the device collect to point to this group?

 

Thanks

[CHiLL]

Managed to find what the issue was. The SCCM device collection wasn't updating until i manually Updated the membership.

 

Just out of interest, how does everyone else deploy software? Im deploying some test applications out using the applications node but also want these deployed out on system re-image so would i add the applications to the task sequence?

 

Obviously not all computers would want certain curriculum applications so would it be best to create a device collect and assign the required computers to this? Or possibly create a computer group, put the computers in this and then add a filter in the device collect to point to this group?

 

Thanks

I have approximately 40 applications that I deploy using SCCM. I have two types of naming/grouping conventions for collections that I use to deploy applications.

 

Firstly I have a collections based on the machine type/group. For example, I have a collection called 'For 64-bit workstations only' - As you can imagine - software deployed to this category is only 64-bit, such as 64-bit Chrome, etc. I have another collection called 'For 32-bit workstations only' and 'For Both 32-bit and 64-bit'. The reason I have the three is because when I deploy say, Adobe Reader, I can deploy is to 'For Both 32-bit and 64-bit' and it's just one deployment. Rather than deploying it to both '64-bit' and '32-bit'. These collections used query based membership based on their hardware.

 

Secondly I create collections based on location, such as 'RM02', which is a 30 PC suite. That way can deploy software such as Adobe CC to just that suite. The query for this is for something along the lines 'Computername like 'RM02%'. I also have a collection called 'All Student Workstations' which uses a query to determine which OU the workstation is in. If it's in one of the student machine OUs, it will deploy the student software. The same goes for a collection for all teacher computers that has say the SMART software assigned to it.

 

The important software that's needed such as Office, Visigo, Adobe Reader, Chrome, etc I have also included in the TS, so that at least once the machine has imaged it can be immediately used and the rest of the 'non-essential' software can install behind the scenes whilst the user is working.

 

Note: SCCM is extremely poor at managing computer restarts. I've found that if a piece of software like Visigo is deployed that requires a device restart - even if you use the /norestart switch, it will mark the software as 'requires restart' in Software Centre and prompt the user to shutdown in 90 minutes. I have not figured out a way to stop, delay or cancel this shutdown (especially if it happens en mass across the site). The machine will then restart in 90 minutes and the user cannot stop it. So deploy software that needs a restart out of hours!

 

Also for query based collections that may have new clients every now and again, use the 'Use incremental updates for this collection' checkbox in the Membership Rules tab of the collection properties. Note: I believe that SCCM has issues when processing more than 200 incremental updates. It doesn't prevent you from creating more than 200, but it takes too long to process the query. So it never completes all the queries.

[clareq]

I use a program called TSGui, which is freeware, and allows me to name a computer when imaging it, and assign it to a room. I can then use filtering within the TS to assign specific programs to specific rooms. It's highly flexible, but means that all software is installed during the Task Sequence, and a machine is immediately useable once the TS finishes.

[Arthur]

Firstly I have a collections based on the machine type/group. For example, I have a collection called 'For 64-bit workstations only' - As you can imagine - software deployed to this category is only 64-bit, such as 64-bit Chrome, etc. I have another collection called 'For 32-bit workstations only' and 'For Both 32-bit and 64-bit'. The reason I have the three is because when I deploy say, Adobe Reader, I can deploy is to 'For Both 32-bit and 64-bit' and it's just one deployment. Rather than deploying it to both '64-bit' and '32-bit'. These collections used query based membership based on their hardware.

There is a much better way of doing this.

 

In SCCM, create a single application that contains an x64 deployment type and an x86 deployment type. Within each of these you set the requirements so that each deployment type will only install on a 64-bit or 32-bit OS. The config manager client will then automatically figure out which one to install.

 

 

 

 

Note: SCCM is extremely poor at managing computer restarts. I've found that if a piece of software like Visigo is deployed that requires a device restart - even if you use the /norestart switch, it will mark the software as 'requires restart' in Software Centre and prompt the user to shutdown in 90 minutes.

For Visigo, adding the REBOOT=ReallySuppress parameter worked fine for me. i.e.

 

msiexec /i Visigo_x64_1.4.5.msi REBOOT=ReallySuppress ORGID=1fa8c788-e0e9-4fdf-b423-9fc0ee80ddcf /q

 

As with Chrome, I create separate deployment types for Visigo too.

 

Edited October 1, 2018 by Arthur

[Areku]

here we use a powershell script as part of the imaging process that renames the computer based on the serial number (which is read from the bios). from there we have our collections set up to query AD, and drop the computers into the correct groups, depending on the location of on AD.