Ghost Solution Suite

Can anyone explain to me how i can deploy software using GSS 3.0? 

To my understanding this is indeed something that can be done, however most info i find is dated. 

 

I know there is PC transplant which would work well if a PC in the environment goes down, however i'm more concerned atm about new PC's going out to production. Atm we use several images for various different departments. I'm hoping to cut back on this and use one standard blank image. Once a blank image has been sent to a PC, i could then hopefully assign this PC a job (or several jobs) for different software needed for the specific department the PC is going to.

My end goal workflow would simply be, Unbox PC > image PC > send jobs for software install via GSS > deploy. 

Is this possible?

I appreciate any help/advise.  

You should be able to create a Task of type "Distribute Software". You can also use a "Run Script" Task type too. What you want to do is exactly what GSS 3.0 is for. When you get more confident with the product you should be able to use the AXSched command to have different suites of programs all using the same underlying jobs. So you'd maybe have Jobs: A. Install Office 2010 B. Install Office 2013 C. Install Visio 2013 D. Install Project 2010 1. Marketing PC axsched B. Install Office 2013 axsched C. Install Visio 2013 2. Project Manager PC axsched A. Install Office 2010 axsched D. Install Project 2010

Thanks for the info, it has given me something to look into and try and study up on. 

Now i just need to figure out how to setup these tasks. I'm unsure where to start. 

 

I am curious about the job wizard for "Deploy software packages" though. It seems to only want PC Transplant packages or RIP's. 

To my knowledge PC Transplant doesn't achieve my immediate goal, and i'm not familiar with RIP's. The bit of research i have done makes it seem like RIP's aren't really used anymore with GSS 3.0. Though i could be mistaken. 

 

*Edit*

I have found and started reading up on Wise Packager. Will this be a good solution? Will i be able to deploy these packages via a job in GSS console? 

 

Don't worry about the warning about PC transplant packages or RIPs, it works fine on any other executable package or windows installer (msi) package. Most exectuable packages should be able to run silently with /Q or /S or similar the ITNinja website has lots of useful info. GSS will put the msiexec in front of Windows Installer (msi) packages for you. Most can be run with just /q as an option. You shouldn't need to use Wise packager initially. That's useful for creating transforms for Windows Installer (msi) packages for customisations that don't have a public property. You can use Wise Packager to look at the "Properties" table of Windows Installer (msi) packages to see which are public proerties you can change on the command line, these will be in Capitals.

This was very helpful, thank you. 

I was just getting ready to give some of this a test run when my GSS console decided it doesn't want to detect any PC's. 

Dagent is reporting an error in the logs on the client computer "ctcpsocketipc::connect to connect error". 

No idea why this all of a sudden started happening. 

 

Appreciate your help!

Firewall?

I checked, even made an exception for ports 401 402 5001 and 5002. Still nothing. 

I found out a GPO was accidentally sent to the server the other day though. I'll have this looked at. 

Hi, Andy!

Your advise really helped!

I express my gratitude for what you have not remained indifferent to my problem and help me to solve it.

You are great specialist who know their job!

Good luck and thanks for your help !!!