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Mobile Device Deployment Strategies for K1000

Hello,

I wanted to reach out to see how others might be handling installations for wirelessly connected Windows laptops and tablets. Laptops and tablets generally are not available after hours allowing for overnight installations like desktops. When they are wirelessly connected they more than likely are in use, and depending upon power conservation settings there may only be relatively short windows of non-use before sleep mode is triggered.

So I wanted to see if anyone had any tricks, tips or strategies for software installations, particularly an installation requiring a reboot, for wirelessly connected mobile devices. Do you employ messaging, startup scripts, tools or others 3rd party utilities, etc. Just wanted to see if any out the box type solutions might be used by other sites using Kace.

Thank you very much for your responses. 

Asked 6 years ago 1020 views
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Answers (1)

Posted by: chucksteel 6 years ago
Red Belt
0
In most instances we rely on user training and notifications. For patching users know when they can expect patches to be installed (Thursday night for most folks). For software distribution we also make sure that our 1st tier support people can kick off the managed install when the user requests it. We generally don't force a reboot unless no one is logged into the computer, otherwise we prompt the user to restart.

If there is something mission critical that needs to go out to all workstations I will create a report to make it easy to find out which computers still need the installation and we start reaching out to the owners to get them to allow the installation to proceed. Sometimes that does involve changing the power saving settings on their machines via a script, first.
Comments:
  • Chuck,
    Thanks for your reply. I think changing their power settings via script so that at least those with AC power might be available overnight is good idea. One of the things I am concerned about are deployments that could possibly be interrupted by a user with a mobile device moving between access points during the installations or powering the device off or putting it into sleep.

    For wireless devices, I wanted test to a solution of syncing installation packages to a folder on the device, confirming the files are present, and then kicking off the installations, which at least removes the download time.

    Have you used the 'Run On Next Connection If Offline' option for patching?

    Thanks again. - kennedym 6 years ago
    • If you are using a managed install to deploy a package then the software will be downloaded completely before the installation proceeds. I believe if the computer disconnects while it is downloading the agent will resume when it next connects.

      Yes, we use the run on next connection option for our patching schedule. Users have been told that if their machine is off during the regularly scheduled time it will patch the next time they connect. - chucksteel 6 years ago

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kennedym White Belt
Ninja since: 11 years ago

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