Application Deployment
After a fair few months of work and with support from the team at PACKT my new book (Microsoft Application Virtualization Cookbook) is out on sale.
With over 60 recipes for the practical application of Microsoft Application Virtualization (Version 5) from every angle including…
- Setting up your first App-V infrastructure
- Deploying the software clients and prerequisites
- Sequencing applications into packages
- Publishing applications and connection groups to your clients
- Integrating with XenDesktop, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and System Centre Configuration Manager
- and lots more!
Since discovering it Munki has made my life looking after Apple Macs measurably easier. In short it allows the centralised deployment of Apple OSX updates as well as the deployment (and updating) of 3rd party software.
In the short screen shot guide below I show how to deploy the OSX Impero Client using Munki.
In this guide I will show you how to create a deployment of Greenfoot 2.3 using Group Policy Software Deployment while ensuring that the software is available for all users of the computer and removing the unnecessary desktop and start menu shortcuts.
If you don’t feel like reading through the guide and you want to use the modifications listed above then just download the transform file (contained within a ZIP file) below.
Greenfoot Transform (980 bytes, 1,501 hits)
First off a few things you will need..
- The Greenfoot Windows installer (its a MSI right out of the box which makes life easy) – http://www.greenfoot.org/download
- The Orca tool MSI editor tool (part of the Windows 7 SDK) – a guide to installing it can be found here https://myworldofit.net/?p=1368
- The Java Development Kit (JDK) pre installed on your PC (the deployment of this is outside the scope of this guide) – http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads
The screen shot sequence below shows how to get everything setup.
When it comes to SCCM 2012 you have a powerful bit of software to deploy software updates and applications however all of this is worthless without the SCCM 2012 client which must first be installed.
This client comes as part of any task sequence that you configure however what if you have PCs that have been previously imaged or have an older version of the client?
In this case I prefer to fall back to good old GPO/MSI deployment; Microsoft does have an article on it in Technet http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/gg712298.aspx however its far from descriptive so for a full guide on deploying the System 2012 Config Manager Client see the screen shot sequence below.
Lets imagine that for the past few years software has been deployed using Group Policy Software Installation and that a single server has been used to store the MSIs.
The only issue is you now want to move the MSIs to another server or even better are looking to move the MSIs to a DFS share.
The ovious option would be to remove and reassign the software packages pointing them at the new path; the issue here is that the software would then go and reinstall its self on all of your PCs!
A better option is to use ADSI edit to change the paths that already exist without having to reassign the software. The procedure in the screen shot sequence below uses the instructions found at this Microsoft KB – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2395088.
PDF is quite possibly one of my favourite web technologies – if nothing else it is my #1 way to share files with others knowing that when they go to view/print them it will look precisely the same as it does on my PC.
The great thing about Adobe PDF reader is its very easy to fully customize the installation without having to use Orca.
In this guide I am looking to, deploy Adobe Reader 11 to all of my clients using group policy software deployment, remove older versions of reader, prevent auto update prompts, accept the EULA for my users, remove the desktop shortcut, make Adobe Reader the default PDF viewer and turn off Protected View (I find it causes more issues than it solves).
A few things you will need
- Adobe Reader deployment resources site (lots of good things to read!) – http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/acrobat/it-resources.html
- Adobe Customization Wizard – http://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Wizard/index.html
- Adobe Reader Licence website (you need this to deploy) – http://www.adobe.com/go/rdr_apply_dist/
If you do not want to go through the Customization Wizard phase and are happy with the settings I will be using you can download the transform file from the ZIP file below.
Adobe Reader 11 Transform (8.0 KiB, 2,322 hits)
So all thats left now is to follow the screen shots below and get Adobe Reader 11 out to your users!
Adobe Flash Player has to be one of the most valuable bits of software ever created, yes HTML5 is taking over for some things but all the same I don’t see Flash disappearing anytime soon.
As such its important to keep Flash updated in your Enterprise. The one pain I’m sure everyone has come across at some stage is your end users getting the prompt to update Flash themselves (see right).
So what I will show you how to accomplish in this guide is
- Obtain and Deploy a MSI for Adobe Flash Player to 32 and 64bit PCs that use Internet Explorer
- Make it so that your users do not get Flash update prompts
A few things you will need
- A read of the Adobe Flash Enterprise Deployment Guide – http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/flash_player_admin_guide.html
- A licence to deploy Adobe Flash Player (its the only way to get at a MSI that will work) – http://www.adobe.com/products/players/flash-player-distribution.html
- Adobe Flash Tester (it will let you know if your deployment has worked or not) – http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/
As part of the setup process you will need to copy a mms.cfg file to some locations on your PCs, to make life simple a sample mms.cfg is included in the ZIP file download below along with the paths to where the files need to be copied to (all is explained in the setup guide).
MMS Config File (131 bytes, 2,061 hits)
32bit Windows – C:\WINDOWS\System32\Macromed\Flash\mms.cfg
64bit Windows – C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash\mms.cfg
So lets get this ball rolling! For the steps on how to mash out Flash to your users follow the screen shot sequence below.
I’m sure if you have ever spent any time looking after PCs you will soon come accross Java asking for updates; in a managed enviroment you wouldn’t want your users to see this prompt and the simple fix is to deploy Java properly.
Before I go any further I would like to thank the creator of this article – http://adminadventure.wordpress.com/ 2012/06/12/java-jre-deployment-via-group-policy/ which most of this article is based upon (with a few my world of IT tweaks).
A few things you will need
- A download of the Offline Installer for Java –
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp - The Orca tool MSI editor tool (part of the Windows 7 SDK) – a guide to installing it can be found here https://myworldofit.net/?p=1368
Since there are too many modifications in Orca to be included in the screen shots I have listed them in the table below instead (everything is in the Property table).
After a few requests the transform file (pre created) is now available in the ZIP file below
Java 7 Transform (943 bytes, 1,782 hits)
So now that you have everything you need just follow this screen shot series.
For a while now Skype have offered a MSI, a ADM template and a nifty little guide on Enterprise Deployment considerations but so far I haven’t found a decent guide which shows how to bring all of these components together to get Skype out there on your client PCs.
In this guide I will be looking to, deploy Skype 6.3 to my clients using GPO/MSI, remove the desktop shortcut, remove its ability to auto launch on login, restrict access to file transfers, put in proxy settings and prevent automated updates (among a few other things that can be done through GPO).
A few things you will need
- A read of the Enterprise Deployment guide (its from 2010 but is still valid) – http://www.skype.com/go/administrators.guide
- The MSI – http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-msi (updated May 2016)
- The ADM template (right click save target as) – http://download.skype.com/share/security/Skype-v1.7.adm
- The Orca tool MSI editor tool (part of the Windows 7 SDK) – a guide to installing it can be found here https://myworldofit.net/?p=1368
After a few requests the transform file (pre created as specified above) is now available in the ZIP file below
Skype 6 Transform (986 bytes, 2,940 hits)
The screen shot sequence below shows how to get everything rolling.
With any luck if you have followed the previous instructions to the letter you should now have a perfectly working App-V package for any of the Adobe CS6 applications, to confirm that the licence is applying correctly you should see a command prompt window appear just before any of the Adobe applications load just as you see in the series of screen shots above.
So the question that everyone is asking – how on earth does this work?
Well basically….
The script that we included in the OSD file tells App-V to run a mini application that licences the Adobe Application every time it launches. This in turn overcomes the way that CS6 binds its self to a machines hardware ID when licenced.
So simple really! If you are having more problems with getting Adobe stuff through App-V check those prerequisites again as this is a common cause of issues!