Client Management Suite

Forgive me if this has been asked - I can't see similar

We use Altiris 6.9 and I'm trying to replicate functionality on a test install of 7.1. The basics seem to be working i.e agent deployment, PXE, software task deployment.

In 6.9 I had 2 main groups of collections

- 1 "Installed Software Collections" which would be populated by a filter - in the main looking for an entry in inv_AeX_OS_Add_Remove_Programs i.e add remove programs to see where software was installed

- 2 "Deploy Software Collections" Where we put the Client PCs we want the software to install in, with the corresponding "Installed Software collection" in as an exclusion.

I would then have a configured software delivery task resource pointing at the corresponding "deploy software collection".

Just adding the PC or group of PCs to the "deploy" collection would trigger the install, following which daily the inventory would run, populating the "installed" collection, dropping it out of the "deploy" collection if install was successfull. I could easily see where software installed and if there were problem PCs if anything was left in the deploy collection.

I can create the software delivery resource, but can I replicate the behaviour with the collections? It's not totally obvious to me, Its not even clear to me if I can search similarly in 6.9 to search  i.e inv_AeX_OS_Add_Remove_Programs on clients?

Many thanks for any assistance..

Ahhh... resources are now known as filters... manage -> filters

Still trying to find how to query the machine inventory.. any help appreciated

>>EDIT >> I think I have to learn a bit of SQL!

And any feedback to if there is a new "better" way to manage software installs? still have to work out policies and a number of other functions.

Thanks, Sukh

Realistically you can do this by creating a software delivery policy policy for this.

Go to Manage > Policies > Software > Managed Software Delivery

You can then create a policy with required filter in there that would do what you want. You can leave machines in these filters and it will just check for compliancy on a schedule based on the applied to filters you use (I use Organisational Groups and let the policy check for compliancy at startup). That way you can apply updates to the policy and it will update the machines in that policy for you without having to create or adjust the filters.

But if you were to create a filter you realistically are looking to build would be (for clients machines with MS Office Installed):

select sw.[_ResourceGuid]
from
Inv_AddRemoveProgram sw
where
sw.DisplayName like 'MS Office 2010%'
and sw.InstallFlag=1