WPKG .. anyone use it?

[soveryapt]

So, I'm looking at the best way to deploy the many different pieces of software that various classrooms need without having to do much repacking to make use of the Microsoft GPO Software Deployment, and came across WPKG and wondered...

1. Does anyone use it? (http://www.wpkg.org)
   
2. Does it work well with 2008R2/W7 Pro?
   
3. Any pitfalls I should be aware of with it?
   

Thanks all

Andy T

[Alis_Klar]

did you see the link to wpkg-gp - Running WPKG as a Group Policy Extension - Google Project Hosting ?

 

Looks good!

[K.C.Leblanc]

I use it here, since nothing executes on the server it should be fine on 2008r2, just as long as you can make the files available to the client.

 

Windows 7 is a different kettle of fish, I've not yet done any testing. It however works fairly well with XP, you do just have to put a bit of care into your package files and think about all the what ifs? We have had an issue where it stalls if there's no network connection (even if you enable the laptop mode), this has been fixed in the Beta version of the client.

[soveryapt]

did you see the link to wpkg-gp - Running WPKG as a Group Policy Extension - Google Project Hosting ?

 

Looks good!

 

Oooo .. that does look good! I'll investigate that one more!

 

I use it here, since nothing executes on the server it should be fine on 2008r2, just as long as you can make the files available to the client.

 

Windows 7 is a different kettle of fish, I've not yet done any testing. It however works fairly well with XP, you do just have to put a bit of care into your package files and think about all the what ifs? We have had an issue where it stalls if there's no network connection (even if you enable the laptop mode), this has been fixed in the Beta version of the client.

 

Ok, I'll take a note of that and look through the WPKG-GP version and see if that might resolve things as it ties in to the GPE settings.

[SimpleSi]

I use it in all my schools

But of course, I use it simply as in all users startup batch file.

 

This means I don't have to worry about the software install being silent which makes life a lot easier.

 

Simon

[Boredguy]

We use it here on our Windows 7 Enterprise stations and it's fine.

We used the GP plugin so that it shows what is being installed prior to the logon screen appearing.

 

In fact it's so good we're rolling it out to our local primary school we support.

[soveryapt]

Looks like this'll be my new development in the school then in that I'll use WDS to roll out a basic image with office software and what not, and then use WPKG to roll out everything else.

[morganw]

We use it here on our Windows 7 Enterprise stations and it's fine.

We used the GP plugin so that it shows what is being installed prior to the logon screen appearing.

 

I've done the same.

[morganw]

Looks like this'll be my new development in the school then in that I'll use WDS to roll out a basic image with office software and what not, and then use WPKG to roll out everything else.

 

Installing Office with WPKG is pretty quick if you are on a gigabit network. I just deployed using the original image from a Windows 7 DVD using MDT2010, installed the antivirus and WPKG-GP as part of the task sequence, then all other software was installed with WPKG.

[soveryapt]

Installing Office with WPKG is pretty quick if you are on a gigabit network. I just deployed using the original image from a Windows 7 DVD using MDT2010, installed the antivirus and WPKG-GP as part of the task sequence, then all other software was installed with WPKG.

 

Think I'll be taking a ganders at that kind of set up then as it sounds ideal!

[soveryapt]

Ok, so I'm looking to actually get this setup now using WPKG-GP so that it shows nicely on the screen what is installing when for the end-user (otherwise they'll likely just force reboot the machine) .. but I'm just wondering if there are any good how-to instructions about anywhere for this?

[morganw]

I would just configure WPKG separately, test profile assignment with the dry run option on the command line (you can just run the javascript directly using cscript). Then when you are happy everything is right install WPKG-GP using documentation from here and it should do exactly the same thing. If anything goes wrong I would normally go back to running the WPKG javascript directly to get the debug output. Writing the package files is the biggest problem just because it takes a while to test them out. Use a VM that you can snapshot to speed up the process. Also, if you use robocopy, either redirect logging to a file or disable it otherwise the copies fail for a large number of files. Using Robocopy in WPKG - WPKG | Open Source Software Deployment and Distribution. Also, it's worth spending sometime understanding regex expressions for use in matching hostnames.

[soveryapt]

Whoop .. it looks like I might have actually got it working .. and just in time for the holidays .. just added a couple of other packages to make sure it's not just a fluke! lol ..

[winng]

We used to have this running very well until we started using the GP aspect. Although the users get to see what's being installed, etc. it can sometimes take forever to complete (and that's when it is just checking everything is up to date). Meanwhile frustrated teacher reboots computer but it just carries on from before until it completes. It could do with a 'skip' for now button I think.

 

I have had to disable it for some users just so that they can get on with teaching!

[K.C.Leblanc]

I have had to disable it for some users just so that they can get on with teaching!

 

Run it on System startup, not log on. And setup wake on lan for classroom PCs so they come on about 10 minutes before the start of the school day.

 

But if it's takes more then a few seconds I would suspect there's an issue with on of your packages. Have a look through the event viewer for WSH errors.

[soveryapt]

it's not just a fluke! lol ..

 

Hmmmm .. lunch then I'll look at this again .. lol ..

[Boredguy]

Which version of WPKG-GP are you running?

We are still on 0.10 and that works quite happily, only downside is you don't know it's doing anything as later versions added the moving dots where as 0.10 just sits saying what application and percentage though the package list it is.

Location for where the wpkg.js is set via GPO policy.

 

Have you checked the event log/local logs to see why the GP component isn't playing. It might be that it can't access the packages location or the XML is not to it's standard.

[soveryapt]

Which version of WPKG-GP are you running?

We are still on 0.10 and that works quite happily, only downside is you don't know it's doing anything as later versions added the moving dots where as 0.10 just sits saying what application and percentage though the package list it is.

Location for where the wpkg.js is set via GPO policy.

 

Have you checked the event log/local logs to see why the GP component isn't playing. It might be that it can't access the packages location or the XML is not to it's standard.

 

I've gone back to simply WPKG for the time being to trouble shoot as I think it was an error in my setup there and that it was just a fluke I managed to get Office to install via it .. but I'm running whichever the latest versions are of the various things (0.15 for GP and 1.3.14 for WPKG)

[soveryapt]

*hangs head in shame*

 

Name of PC I'm testing on BSS-TestBuild

Name of Hosts I'm trying to get the additional software to install to bss-ws-+ (so anything starting with bss-ws-)

Default Profile installs Office only ..

 

No wonder the other bloody stuff ain't installing! How thick do I feel right now?! Anyone would think it's the last day of term and it's even getting to me! lol ..

[soveryapt]

Whoop .. all working now (and I noticed I'd also missed out the . in the .+ for the naming so that's sorted something else too)

 

One last thing I'm trying to sort out though, tmp files that seem to now be littering the desktop .. should I have set a location for these to be dumped and the desktop is just the default or? I can't find anything on the WPKG site itself ..

 

Ta

[morganw]

Not sure what you mean by temp files, are you talking about program icons dumped there by installers or something like that?

If you get performance issues with WPKG-GP being slow the problem is normally a lack of bandwidth to the WPKG share, if you run the WPKG script directly under the same conditions it will probably be just as slow but obviously won't hold up the logon process. You get exactly the same problem with CC3 package management which does the same thing and you will encounter similar delays. To speed up the process I think there is a script supplied with WPKG which will build a single xml file from your definition files to remove most of the download overhead.

[cpjitservices]

Im trying to get this working via GP - Where is the .adm file ?

[cpjitservices]

I would love to get this working but no clues where to even start - I've set the XML files up with hosts, packages, and profile! how do I roll out stuff to my hosts ?

[Boredguy]

ADM file source can be found here -> wpkg-gp.adm - wpkg-gp - Running WPKG as a Group Policy Extension - Google Project Hosting

 

To deploy out Flash Player 11, this is how our system is configured

 

In Packages folder - FlashPlayer.XML

 

 

In our Profiles folder, we have a XML called Core.xml which contains the following

 

 

Finally in our Hosts folder we have a XML for the majority of our machines which contains

 

 

 

This means that any computer that starts with "BFS-PC-" has the profile id "Core" assigned to it. In this case the only package within the "Core" group is Flash Player.

We have around 12 - 15 different packages that we assign out as part of our Core deployment, such as Office, Antivirus and general plugins

Each of our host computers can have multiple profiles assigned to them.