Deployment Solution

Has anyone done this?  We're thinking of deploying the aclient to our US clients like this.  Anyone have any experience or dos and don'ts?
Thanks!

It really does depend on how you mean deploy by group policy. If you’re talking about using a logon script to check that it is installed and then if not install then you can get the aclient to install silently using aclient.exe -install -silent

You can get it to report to the correct server using your aclient.inp file with all of the settings previously setup. Just look at a computer that already has the aclient installed and configured and pull the .INP file from there.

Once you have the file you will install using c:\pathto\aclient.exe c:\pathto\aclient.inp -install -silent

If you are talking about install using Group Policy software push, then you have 2 options. Don't do it and use a startup script with a if not exist. Or you could follow this guide here for using ZAP files http://www.appdeploy.com/tips/detail.asp?id=31.

I'd personally use the startup script, easy to make and maintain and all pc's put in that OU will install if not present. When install is finished and a refresh from Altiris DS Console should show the new computers.

Hope all make sense I'm rather tired today.

Josh Bauer

Yeah I'd been talking to one of my Sys Admins and they were telling me they could push out msi files through an Active Directory group policy.  I think we were trying to get away from the logon script thing.  So then it would probably be 2nd item about, using the software push.  We're trying to see if we can package up the aclient.exe into an msi so it gets sent out that way.  And yeah it would be to all machines in an OU to make it easier.  Have you used either of these?
Thanks

I have repackaged many exe setups before and made them msi files using Wise Setup Capture (depending on your ds version it should be located \eXpress\Wise Packager) This can sometimes be easy and complicated depending on the software. Anything with services or drivers that are installed seem to be one of the difficult ones, just need a little tweaking once done.

You could try this with aclient.exe, I have never tried it with aclient install myself, but for no reason should it not work. Just make sure you check the service parameters are set right using WfWI.exe (Wise MSI Editor).

Basically with this sort of thing you just need to have a go and work it out through trial and error. Hopefully Symantec will make things easier in the next release.

Josh Bauer

Thanks for the tips Josh!