Automated software deployment

Sccm is a beast and can destroy everything if you go in half hearted

Having had a discussion with my manager, it doesn't have to be free.

I guess it just needs to be the right solution for the business.

The network is only around 60 possibly 70 machines if you include the laptops.

We only need it really to keep things like Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Flash uptodate on Win 10. There is a few other bits and pieces but they aren't critical and they don't get updated often.

The other thing is any solution that takes a lot of the admin out of it for me would be good as they brought me on board to assist the current Linux admin after my initial few months where my job is to sort out their internal Office IT requirements. So the less Windows I do the more time I will have to do Linux which is my aim.

Chocolatey looks like a possibility. Haven't looked in to it yet. Also was going to look at GPO deployments too. I am the only support admin at the company at the moment so can only really process one project at a time.

We use Kaspersky to do our non-MS patch deployment. Our guy who runs that side of things speaks highly of it.
If you're looking for an AV renewal it couldn't hurt to combine the 2 and try and get a deal.

It can also do software deployment but don't know too much about that side of it and how much better than using GPO's to do it is.

have you looked into MDT (Microsoft deployment toolkit)?

this effectually a free, cut down of what you get in SCCM. it sits on top of WDS and lets you run a Task sequence of actions during your deployment. this is not a patch management solution but it does add a lot of flexibility to the initial deployment setup. i use it a lot now to run scripted installs of applications. we can select what we need at deployment time and then it installs whatever is the current version.

have a look at this vid,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv-Rc_V08-s

and this playlist as well is a good starter (same guy)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY27VNfjvp0XLVfTJx1tNpSb0B8xhyjF9

I am working towards finishing our first reference image now for a win 10 enterprise deployment that will end up on over 1000 machines, though just starting on ~50 this summer hopefully.

Dan

DanielSon said:

have you looked into MDT (Microsoft deployment toolkit)?

this effectually a free, cut down of what you get in SCCM. it sits on top of WDS and lets you run a Task sequence of actions during your deployment. this is not a patch management solution but it does add a lot of flexibility to the initial deployment setup. i use it a lot now to run scripted installs of applications. we can select what we need at deployment time and then it installs whatever is the current version.

have a look at this vid,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv-Rc_V08-s

and this playlist as well is a good starter (same guy)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY27VNfjvp0XLVfTJx1tNpSb0B8xhyjF9

I am working towards finishing our first reference image now for a win 10 enterprise deployment that will end up on over 1000 machines, though just starting on ~50 this summer hopefully.

Dan

Click to expand...

I haven't yet. I'm currently working on a WDS deployment too. I've heard MDT mentioned a bit so far. However last week I worked on setting up the WDS server and now I am working on syspreping a Win 10 image.

I'll have a look at MDT. Thanks

What I'm really looking for is a way to manage on going software deployments.

I posted this else where but no one commented. Maybe you would know:

"For those of you that run Win 10 at home you've probably come across the scenario where you initially had a local account but after adding your MS email in the Win 10 app your account sign on suddenly gets tied your email account.

As I'm on the cusp of rolling out Win 10 at work to about 60-70 machines which are all on the domain, does anyone know what will happen if the end users start adding their personal accounts to the Win 10 apps. Such as email etc....

1. Do they roam if the user changes PC?
2. What happens to the domain login when the user adds their personal account to the apps?"

HPSA and HPCA, we started looking at Chef and a few other open source package installers but no client demand so funding dried up.

I quite enjoy using HPSA, I can deploy a full L3 server within an hour if I have to

Probably way over budget, but Horizon Mirage would be my first choice. Sccm is old news in comparison.

Thanks for the recommendations guys. I'm currently investigating PDQ deploy.

It looks easy enough, has a deploy now as well as a schedule function. And critically also has a free mode.

Comparing the free vs pro functionality I can see with the paid version you can uninstall remotely the applications.

For people that have actually used PDQ deploy how far can you go why free mode? Can you base an enterprise class deployment solution just using free mode?

I guess it's not THAT expensive to buy PDQ deploy and PDQ inventory. Both would cost £740 odd.

Unfortunately the company I work for does have tight margins so money saved is always better making free the premium choice.

With the free version, the deployments are limited to 1 step rather than multiple steps, so you have to write batch files to push out, but if you're doing that then youre defeating the purpose of automated software deployment and updates.

I've used PDQ for about 5 years, nothing I dont really know about it, I use it to manage 3000 devices over 5 sites and i've lost count of the amount of installs and auto-installs is does - it's stupidly feature rich and if you tie it in with inventory, you can automate lots!

It's worth every penny

Terrier_Jimlad said:

With the free version, the deployments are limited to 1 step rather than multiple steps, so you have to write batch files to push out, but if you're doing that then youre defeating the purpose of automated software deployment and updates.

I've used PDQ for about 5 years, nothing I dont really know about it, I use it to manage 3000 devices over 5 sites and i've lost count of the amount of installs and auto-installs is does - it's stupidly feature rich and if you tie it in with inventory, you can automate lots!

It's worth every penny

Click to expand...

I think we will end up paying for the pro version. My manager doesn't seem to think £740 a year is too much.

It looks exactly what we are looking for.

Tell me one thing, if you push out say a Chrome update to the machines in AD.

1. If the end user is on the PC and using Chrome what will happen? Obviously we dont want it to just close the browser from under the user in order to update it.

2. What if the end machine is turned off? Will it queue and activate the deployment when the machine turns on next?

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I didn't have time today to technically download it and go through the motions of actually using it to see how it functions. Probably something I do tomorrow or next week.

opethdisciple said:

I think we will end up paying for the pro version. My manager doesn't seem to think £740 a year is too much.

It looks exactly what we are looking for.

Tell me one thing, if you push out say a Chrome update to the machines in AD.

1. If the end user is on the PC and using Chrome what will happen? Obviously we dont want it to just close the browser from under the user in order to update it.

2. What if the end machine is turned off? Will it queue and activate the deployment when the machine turns on next?

---

I didn't have time today to technically download it and go through the motions of actually using it to see how it functions. Probably something I do tomorrow or next week.

Click to expand...

1) It will install the update if the user has Chrome open and it applies the update the next time they reload it.

2) Well you have some choices here. By default the install will fail as the host machine is not accessible, but you can set it so any offline machines are woke up using Wake On LAN if they're offline at the time of the deployment.

However, for updates to the likes of Chrome, Adobe Reader, Flash, etc you can have an auto deployment from the package library that is applied against either your entire domain, an OU, a group, or a manual collection in PDQ Inventory, and just set the schedule to run at midday every day and it will try every day and then drop off the schedule once successful. So, just set it once and forget about it and rest in the knowledge that your switched on computers are always up to date.

There are so many options available!

Their video tutorials on YouTube are great too!