[wds] What do you image? (Apps wise)

[Mr.Ben]

Windows & Latest Patches, IE (7 at the moment)

 

Office & Latest Patches

 

All Kartouche Software

 

All 2Simple Software

 

Crocodile Clips Elementry

 

Genie Vision Drivers

 

CraftRobo Drivers & Software

 

PTC Pro

 

SIMS (When can we have a decent installer?)

 

Clicker 5 (Really should work as it's an MSI, but doesn't want to)

 

That's about it.

 

I don't tend to deploy service packs, i'd rather wait until the summer and have new images.

 

Basically it's anything that won't ever get updated without incuring a cost. I can script an unistall if needed and then push out the updated app normally.

 

I use SpecOps, so legacy packages are not a problem, even then, the rest of the softwares deployment takes about an hour.

 

Sophos needs prompting to deploy through the enterprise console.

 

And voila, a nice newly imaged desktop.

[Mr.Ben]

The problem is when the software doesn't just deploy from group policy. The things I really want to keep up to date just don't deploy properly from their distributable msi files. Quicktime, Flash and Acrobat are often unpredictable even on identical machines. If I could trust them to just work then I would!

 

I do have other applications that work perfectly from MSI, and upgrade/remote etc fine.

 

Agree with Quicktime, but have you signed up to adobe for a distribution licence, you get Flash and Shockwave in nice MSI files - Java can be done easily as well.

 

As for Acrobat, I gave up with it after it stupidly always forgot it's file association in version 9.0. There were loads of other instances of this of the web, but my answer from Adobe was 'it's not a priority to fix'. I use Foxit now, comes as an MSI.

 

Unless anyone knows better with adobe, then I'll move back to it.

[shrapnel09]

I've had great success deploying Java following these steps:

Deploying Java through Group Policy and Java RE Improvements - 404 Tech Support

 

Flash has also been very reliable for me along with Adobe Reader. Acrobat on the other hand... having troubles with 9.3 right now.

 

I wish Quicktime would die in a fire.

[Disease]

 

I wish Quicktime would die in a fire.

 

LOL, that cheered me up.

[sted]

quicktime via gpo is reasonably reliable its just a pain to get going in the first place but as said i wish i could manage without it same as itunes can be msi deployed (dont ask one of my schools has a head whos a mac man and uses it for something or other). Java as long as you diable webstart service is usually fine as well i just have a habbit of getting one version sorted in time for 2 days later the next minor revision to be out. My biggest annoyance is that office 2003 is great via gpo office 07 i gave up and scripted what a backwards step m$ thankyou

[garethEds]

Okay - here is where I am.

 

The image now only contains:

 

 

• Windows XP(SP3) fully patched
  
• QuickTime (Latest version)
  
• Java (Latest version from java.com)
  
• Adobe Creative Suite Master Edition CS3 (that really pushes the image size up)
  
• Sibelius 5 + Associated Software (due to issues with the msi file)
  

Using Advanced Installer Pro I managed to repackage:

 

• VLC Media Player 1.03
  
• Gantt Project
  
• Edraw MindMaps
  

I licenced:

 

• Adobe Flash Player - so downloaded the msi
  
• Adobe Shockwave Player - downloaded the msi
  
• Adobe Reader 9.0 and used the configuration tool
  

Everything else is based on GPO and msi stuff. WSUS then updates Office 2003 to SP3. We are due to go Office 2007 quite soon so I didn't bother slipstreaming Sp3 into the admin install of Office 2003.

 

I wish CS3 was a lot easier to install. It's a shame Adobe didn't sort something out. Sibelius have also been very lazy with their msi and will not go back to look at it.

 

So thanks everyone. My WDS server is working. Images are being deployed using a sysprep.inf and an unattend.xml file. At the moment I am chuffted.

 

Now to begin the R&D on how to deploy Windows 7 using MDT2010 (can that do XP as well with the .wim images I already have?)

 

Thanks again,

 

Gareth

[PiqueABoo]

I don't think browser plugins are that good in an image because they change a *lot* and usually, amongst other things, to fix actively exploited security vulnerabilities:

 

Acrobat 9.0 = vulnerable, it's 9.3 this week... does that Shockwave version end in .606 coz that's now the latest.. and so on.

Edited January 20, 2010 by PiqueABoo

[garethEds]

I don't think browser plugins are that good in an image because they change a *lot* and usually, amongst other things, to fix actively exploited security vulnerabilities:

 

Acrobat 9.0 = vulnerable, it's 9.3 this week... does that Shockwave version end in .606 coz that's now the latest.. and so on.

 

Yes I agree - that is what we were thinking. However I doubt we will spend time upgrading them every time a new version comes out. If they work then that is fine for now.

 

Acrobat at the moment - the downloadable .exe is only 9.0 so that is a bit annoying. Or it was yesterday :-)

 

GJE

[Tunster]

We apply all basic software packages as I personally don't use GPO/MSIs to install programs remotely. To be honest, it's the only thing I need to teach myself and more than likely will start to learn it over the next holidays.

 

We've got...

 

• Office 2007 (+SP3)
  
• Adobe CS3 (+Updates when image created)
  
• LanSchool (only on IT suite specific workstations)
  
• Java
  
• Audacity
  
• Realplayer
  
• Quicktime
  
• Solidworks 2008
  
• Drivers that relate to type of image (a god send when having multiple hardware covering different IT suites!)
  

 

I've left Sophos off that list as I now can effectively deploy it remotely using GPOs to correct the services that don't start by default. WSUS covers all the Office + OS updates (however I test updates on a virtual machines before deploying to all workstations).

 

The image also creates a local admin account and sorts out all the setup process so we get straight to the logon box after deploying the image. Makes it easier to then domainise the workstation and complete a whole room in no time.

 

I'm glad we went to Vista as an early adopter (even though most of you will say it was crazy in an education environment!) to learn and tweak the whole process.

 

NB: Next to learn a Mac deployment process

Edited January 21, 2010 by Tunster

[garethEds]

quicktime via gpo is reasonably reliable its just a pain to get going in the first place but as said i wish i could manage without it same as itunes can be msi deployed (dont ask one of my schools has a head whos a mac man and uses it for something or other). Java as long as you diable webstart service is usually fine as well i just have a habbit of getting one version sorted in time for 2 days later the next minor revision to be out. My biggest annoyance is that office 2003 is great via gpo office 07 i gave up and scripted what a backwards step m$ thankyou

 

Just seen this in action. Java has gone up to Update 18 overnight :-(

 

GJE

[PiqueABoo]

Just seen this in action. Java has gone up to Update 18 overnight :-(

 

Did that a bit earlier for me, but .. before you start packaging anything like this it's usually worth a quick trip to FileHippo to see what the latest versions are. Alternatively I sometimes fire up Secunia PSI on my home machine which tells me about out of date and/or insecure (with details) stuff.