The use of importing mass numbers of computers in Deployment Solution can be an incredible time saver for any Altiris Administration team. Altiris has provided, since the 5.5 days, a sample spreadsheet "ImportComputers55.xls" in the Deployment Server\Samples directory to use as a framework when importing computers. Simply enter your relevant data, save as a .csv and import the new computers to DS.
A few known issues have cropped up over the years, and the two available workarounds are provided in the following kb articles:
Altiris KB Article 23637
Altiris KB Article 35437
With the recent updates of 6.9, 6.9SP1, and 6.9SP1 MR1, some people have experienced new issues with this method, that the two previous articles didn't resolve.
.An excellent solution was posted to the legacy Altiris forums, by customer williama (who deserves all the credit).
By adding a blank column in column 4, labeled 'added', the mass import resolves without issue (provided the inputed data is correct).
Please read the post for more details.
The New Import Fix for DS6.9 (+)
There is a new way to import computers. See if this works for you.
Import and Export computers has been added to DS 6.9 or greater. The exported file is xml format so this is much easier than importing machines using the csv. Give it a world.
--nelson
I was using MS Office 2007, so the 16 row limit was not an issue.
Note: I added the attachment for the new spreadsheet, since I missed it the first go-around. (still learning the new site)