Anyone use SMS to deploy apps in a W2K environment?

KB

Diamond Member
Nov 8, 1999
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First I would like to know who is using System Management Server to deploy apps as opposed to group policies?

If you are using SMS maybe you can answer this question for me?

We are trying to distribute Office XP using the Windows NT client softar installation account , but we want a script to run with the rights of the logged in user before Office XP does. So we made two programs and set the script to run first in the Office XP installation program's Advanced
property "Run another program first". This works for the first user to log into the machine but will not work for any other user unless we format the machine or create a whole new package and advertisement. If we run the advertisement again the OfficeXp install runs but the script does not. Changing the properties to "Run once for every user who logs on", does not change anything. I wonder if this is by design or if we are doing something wrong?
 

PeeluckyDuckee

Diamond Member
Feb 21, 2001
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SMS is quite funky, from my experience with it, which isn't much btw.

In the environment on client machines, it doesn't always pull down the required software from the SMS servers. When something gags, it fails to run properly. Some components of SMS takes forever to retreive (in many cases, days), or doesn't get pulled down at all. Same with software. In other cases, take IE for example, where client machines already have IE, an SMS advertisement is only supposed to check who has the latest IE update and who doesn't. Well, it ends up everbody gets the download no matter what.

Isn't SMS advertisement equivalent to broadcasting on the network? Like I say, haven't dealt with it much, only seen it in action from the client's standpoint.

With Windows 2000 AD and software deployment feature, I don't see the need to use SMS for software deployment.