Managed Installations - Run Anytime and Alerts appear to conflict
I am trying to deploy Office 2013. Employees cannot be using Office 2010 while it is deploying so Office must be closed so I wanted to create a distribution that covers 2 situations:
- The computer is left on overnight with no one logged
- The employee is at work using the computer
We setup a distribution with "Alert user before run" enabled and after 5 minutes the install proceeds. This works great for when users are logged in and may still be using an app that might interfere with the Office deployment. This tells them to close up, then deploys, then tells them they are done.
The issue is when the computer is turned on, but no one logged in. It does not seem to do anything. I am guessing it is because no one is there to confirm the prompt so the package never installs.
I would really prefer that the package has the ability to install whether some is there or not and be able to warn the user when they are there. Is this possible?
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Posted by:
chucksteel
9 years ago
I created two separate managed installs to deal with this problem. One is silent and only runs when the user isn't logged into the computer. The other is visible and has the prompts to let the user know they need to quit any office applications. My zip containing the office installer files contains two batch files that reference the different MSP files needed for the silent and visible installations and I set the command line appropriately on the managed install.
One warning: We initially had the silent install to run anytime during the day but this caused a problem. Users would turn on their machines and KACE would start checking in before they logged into the computer. The silent Office installation would then begin but then the user would login and launch Outlook or Word. This would cause an error for the installation which is now running silently in the background. We modified the silent install to only run after business hours because of that.
Comments:
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That sounds like a good idea to have the two. It would require very little effort to create and maintain scripts for both situations and I could deploy either script with a single label so I would not have to know if the user is going to be logged in or off. Let me run this idea for Office 2013 by you and see if this sounds good:
1. Make a single Admin image of Office 2013 so that it only has the progress bar as it is installing silently. The progress bar is good to have in the install so when we configure a script for when a user is logged in they can see what is going on and it does not show when a user is logged off
2. Create a label “Deploy Office 2013”
3. Create the KACE distribution script with this installer so that it has all the KACE prompts before and after the install:
a. Execute = With User Logged in
b. Software = Microsoft Office Professional 2013 (from Software with install uploaded)
c. Command Line = setup.exe /adminfile mycustom.msp
d. Set Label to “Deploy Office 2013”
e. Set Alert user before run to “Hey, we are going to install this….Don’t mess with it”
f. Set timeout to “15 minutes” and Action to “Install Now”
g. Set completion message to “Yeah!! You now have Office” and a timeout of 30 min
4. Create a second KACE distribution script with this installer:
a. Execute = With User Logged Off
b. Command Line = setup.exe /adminfile mycustom.msp
c. Set Label to “Deploy Office 2013”
So now when I apply the label “Deploy Office 2013” to computers it will deploy one of the two scripts depending on if the user is logged in or not. - JordanNolan 9 years ago-
The only thing I would suggest is setting the silent install to run outside of business hours. This stops the potential issue of the install starting before someone logs into the computer. - chucksteel 9 years ago
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In my case I have computers across the globe. Do you know if the Business Hours setting is local to the computer or to the K1000?
I have computers set to check in every 6 hours so I should be able to catch most computers 2 times while logged off. I do have the potential of someone logging off and the installer running and them jumping back on. - JordanNolan 9 years ago -
I don't know if the deployment settings use the local or server timezone. You might have to check with support on that. - chucksteel 9 years ago
1. User Alerts under Distribution towards the end of the day to remind people to close out of office products
2. Set up a distribution to run anytime
3. Set the schedule to off hours so that it happens when people are not at their desk
Then you don't have to worry about using the Notify section of the managed installation as the pop ups will stack on each other if no one is logged in. - nshah 9 years ago