I want to try to use a GPO push of the CPS installation for my 12.3.3 upgrade. It seems to be working very well in my lab as either a new install or upgrade of the existing client. I am curious if there is a way to push the Plug-ins too, though. All I can find in the install directory are .cab files and if you decompress them there is a setup and an inf file, no .msi. I would need to be creative with the OU layout to pull this off but I am just curious if anyone else is using .msi deployment.
If I could push to all the machines wih a GPO then I could just push all plug-ins to all machines. That is not the optimal plan but it could work.
Nobody else uses .MSI deployment 🙁
Thank you for asking the question!
We are in the process of planing an upgrade from 12.0.6 to 12.3.3. I had a conversation with athena yesterday on automating the install, but they had little help to offer - told me to try CHUG, so here I am 🙂
It definitely sounded like they didn't have a package to provide us in order to install the plugins.
Are you using GPO to upgrade fat clients? If so, how many and has it been relatively consistent as far as install timing, etc.?
Thank you,
Grace
I've been pushing plugins using PSEXEC for the past 5 years or so. You can probably do it with a GPO as well but I've always pushed to certain desktops since not all users have the same plugins.
I can write up a tutorial for you tomorrow.
>Are you using GPO to upgrade fat clients? If so, how many and has it been relatively consistent >as far as install timing, etc.?
I have been hesitant to try pushing CPS during an upgrade but I think we are going to do it for the first time when we upgrade in a few weeks. I do push things via GPO to my fat clients and it works great. I took the time to plan everything out before hand and I do lots of testing. We usually have a crew which goes around and touches every machine anyway so worst case, they will have to do what they usually do.
The psexec push sounds interesting for plug-ins. I already use psexec a lot for various things. It is still a bit tedious to do it that way but probably better than "sneaker net" like we do now.
I noticed you asked about timing. We are about 75 percent through our Windows 10 rollouts. With each upgrade we are replacing the legacy hard drives with SSD drives which are much faster. I noticed that those newly upgraded workstations were not installing the software unless I tweak a few settings:
Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components> Window Installer > Always install with elevated privileges
Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Logon > Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon
Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Group Policy > Software Installation policy processing (check "Allow processing across a slow network connection")
The main one which worked for me was the "Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon", I think because they SSD boot time was much faster.
I have avoided spending money on deployment things because I have been able to utilize GPO for the most part. There are some workstations which need a gpupdate /force to apply the new settings but I am not sure that buying a alternate deployment method would help there anyway. I do not get feedback on whether the install is happening or not, and with Windows 10 it will just say "Please wait" instead of "Installing managed application" during install. Why Microsoft would remove this minimal feedback is beyond me.
I have a lab set up with old (retired) hardware which I use for this purpose. I install CPS on the old hardware, perform the CPS server upgrade there and also test the GPO MSI push to several clients. We use the test server for employee training as necessary for changes. My network switches can support the installs but it definitely will slow things down on upgrade day.
How much time/effort will this save us? It should help but it sure would be nice if we could push the plug-ins with a GPO.
Mike Zavolas
Tallahassee Neurological Clinic
>I've been pushing plugins using PSEXEC for the past 5 years or so. You can probably do it with a >GPO as well but I've always pushed to certain desktops since not all users have the same plugins.
>I can write up a tutorial for you tomorrow.
Hi Tony. I would love to see how you do that if you have some time to share your notes. I actually forgot about this thread since there wasn't much interest at first. Glad to see some activity!
Mike Zavolas
Tallahassee Neurological Clinic
Create Response File for Plugins:
Open the plugin cab files from your JBOSS server for each plugin and place the setup.exe files into their own folder. I grab these from the demo environment prior to upgrading our production environment.
Example:
C:\Plugins\Centricity
C:\Plugins\CentricityRT
If you're updating plugins, I suggest running these from a machine that has each plugin already installed.
From a command line, browse to the plugin folder and run it with the "-r" switch ("setup.exe -r"). This will start the installation and remember every selection you made (Upgrade, don't update DB, etc).
After you've completed the install of the plugin, browse to the local Windows directory and look for a "setup.iss" file. This is the response file needed for that specific plugin. Place this setup.iss file in the corresponding plugin folder.
Do those steps for each plugin seperatately so you don't overwrite the setup.iss file for another plugin.
I put all of the plugins in a folder that is accessible by any machine (common folder on the network). Example below found in the batch file: \\files01\departments\Information Technology\Application Installs\CPS 12.3.2\plugins\centricity
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Batch files for installing the plugins:
install_plugincentricity.bat
echo
net use s: /delete
net use s: \\files01\departments
s:
cd \Information Technology\Application Installs\CPS 12.3.2\plugins\centricity
Setup.exe /s
install_plugincentricityrt.bat
echo
net use s: /delete
net use s: \\files01\departments
s:
cd \Information Technology\Application Installs\CPS 12.3.2\plugins\centricityrt
Setup.exe /s
Place the batch files in NETLOGON under whatever folder you want. Just make sure it matches the rest of scripts.
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Pushing out the plugins:
I use PsExec using an account that has permission on each of the machines using the following commands and file structure for orgranization (use whatever you prefer). We use LANSweeper and it gives me a list of all machines that have specific plugins and I put the computer names into a text file.
T:\Tools\PsExec\PsExec.exe
T:\Tools\PsExec\pc_plugins.txt (place in the same directory as PsExec for ease of use)
Run this from the command prompt using credentials that work for your environment:
psexec -h @pc_plugins.txt -u domain\username -p password cmd /C \\server01\NETLOGON\CPS\install_plugincentricity.bat
psexec -h @pc_plugins.txt -u domain\username -p password cmd /C \\server01\NETLOGON\CPS\install_plugincentricityrt.bat
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Hope this helps someone and if you have any questions, you can reach out to me.
Tony Eder
Awesome, Thanks for the detailed instructions.
Mike Zavolas
Tallahassee Neurological Clinic