SCCM 2012 Users! - How do you deploy your software?

[OhDear]

Hi, over summer we installed SCCM 2012 and have been using Software Deployment to for our Xen Farm. This is working well and was thinking about using it instead of Group Policy, how do you do it? Do you use Group Policy or SCCM Software Deployment?

 

Thanks!

[gshaw]

SCCM usually but depends on the software and whether it's a clean install or upgrade.

 

One thing SCCM does really badly is preventing users from opening programs that are being upgraded, got caught by this when trying to move from Office 2007 to 2010 as users were shutting machines down half way through the upgrade! Not sure if it's been fixed in 2012 but SCCM really needs two key features for software deployment...

 

a) better notification messages that can be customised per advertisement with instructions for users e.g. "don't touch anything!"

b) a way to lock the workstation while critical software deployments are in progress so the user can't abort the installation by shutting down the PC

 

If anyone has solved either of the above I'd be interested to know how

[synaesthesia]

We use SCCM - just works. 90% of the msi's we can download easily just work when imported, and so far all of the RM packages just work when imported as MSIs. We've yet to break out an MSI editor, although there's more to come.

Regardless, it just works - it's sent out to a deployment test collection first (a VM), if it installs and works then it's sent out to the relevant collections. Haven't had any problems with people turning machines off as that's not something they tend to do, and if worst comes to the worst we can schedule installation at 5:00am with SCCM's wake on lan feature to do just that.

We send out always as required deployments with everything hidden and only restart in the maintenance window.

[TheCrust]

We use SCCM - not 2012, but still 2007 R3 and like @synaesthesia, it just works for us.

 

We have integrated the MDT to it and are heavy users of the Operating System Deployment task sequences as well as for application deployment. This is something I find particularly ideal for education: how easy is it to schedule a complete reimage of an IT suite without having to touch any of the computers beyond making sure they're turned on? (and even then, we could use WoL for that if we were inclined)

[OhDear]

Thanks for your replies, they have been very helpful. We are just about to roll out Office 2010 using SCCM 2012 and was wondering if there is a way to stop the computer from shutting down whilst it is installing? We have it set so it wont show it installing so they will not know to leave it on... bit of a problem really.

[synaesthesia]

If you have your software deployment set up correctly then you'll have a maintenance window - one of the options is to restart at any time rather than inside the maintenance window, so rifle through the options there and you should be good to go.

[OhDear]

So that will stop the end user from Shutting Down/Restarting?

[synaesthesia]

Oh sorry, I see. If that's a particular difficulty I'd suggest making sure machines had WoL working fully and rolled out software on a schedule so the machines woke up at say 5am and did everything they needed to before anyone got in.

[OhDear]

Sounds like a plan! Another quick question... do you give your users the Software Center shortcut?

[synaesthesia]

No.They have no control over anything, besides all software we push out is forced and fully hidden so even if they did start it, they'd not see anything going on.

[gshaw]

Quick qu with WOL... if you turn off the plug socket then back on can the PC still be woken via the magic packet? It's always failed for me in this situation and have a feeling I read somewhere that power needs to stay on after the shutdown although might be wrong?

 

People do have a habit of unplugging things, especially in classrooms.

[synaesthesia]

That's not something I've ever heard of gshaw - however that may well be the case on machine where WoL is controlled by drivers rather than BIOS or "BIOS" support.