[gptalk] Re: Determining if Group Policy Deployment is right for us....

  • From: "Michael Pietrzak" <mpietrzak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 15:05:54 -0800

Darren,

 

I remember Curt over at the minasi forums mentioning something about you
developing a software deployment application. Was there ever anything
like that that you were working on?

 

Thanks,

 

Michael

 

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Darren Mar-Elia
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 2:41 PM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Re: Determining if Group Policy Deployment is right
for us....

 

Matt-

Lots of questions in there but I would say that GP will almost meet your
requirements. The only one that really stands out is the need for no
reboots. In general, if you deploy per-computer, then you need to reboot
for a machine to pick that up. Same goes for per-user installations
requiring a user to re-logon to pick up the package. 

 

Otherwise GP fits most of your requirements. You would need to package
your DLLs as an MSI package, which is not a big deal if your company
developed them, or even if they haven't with packaging software.

 

As for updates, you can use GP to create "upgrade relationships"
between, for example, v1 and v2. The package in v2 has to know how to
handle upgrading v1 but otherwise, it works as expected and it allows GP
to handle when to update an application.

 

As for 3rd party products, there are many, many software distribution
solutions out there. I would say that only a small subset of them rely
on GP. One of the notable ones is SpecOps Deploy. But you have many,
many 3rd party distribution solutions out there to choose from.

 

Darren

 

 

From: gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gptalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Matt Walker
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 3:58 PM
To: gptalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gptalk] Determining if Group Policy Deployment is right for
us....

 

Hi all,

 

We are currently in the process of creating a new application which will
house all the logic on a server and have workstations hit that.  The
workstations will need some .dll's, etc. installed to allow the
integration with some other third party applications.  It is the desire
to have these components installed on the workstations with the
following points in mind:

 

            Ease of installation with little to no user interaction

            No need to have admin rights on the workstation

            No need to reboot the target workstation

            Ability to self update

            Ease of uninstallation.

 

With these in mind, will Group Policy work for us?  I know it may be
difficult to determine without knowing the actual footprint of the
workstation components.

 

In reading some Group Policy information, a question does arise for me.
What method would I use since this package that will be installed will
not really be a functioning application, but simply unrelated
components?  There are no real entry points to this 'application' that
would be installed.  Would I assign this package to a computer/user?  In
other words, this package should be installed always.  

 

Then, down the line, we would want to be able to upgrade, remove, etc.

 

If upgrading, how does that actually work?  I know how to upgrade simply
using the Windows Installer methodology, but how does that fold into
Group Policy.  In using group policy for this purpose, would I just be
telling the system to install this .msi then, based on its internal
codes, upgrade accordingly?  Is there any way to detect when an update
is needed or is it simply the job of the Administrator to monitor this
and employ a new policy to push the update?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated so I thank you in advance.

 

I read up on third party deployment tools and many seem to be wrapped
around Group Policy in some way.  Is this an accurate statement or do
many tools handle pushing software differently?

 

Again, thanks for the help!!

 

Matt Walker
Installation Development
Synergis Software
472 California Road | Quakertown, PA 18951
Phone: 215.529.9900, x192 | 800.836.5440 
Fax:    215.536.9249
www.synergis-adept.com <http://www.synergis-adept.com/>  

Simple, Powerful Document Management

 

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