Allowing users to postpone installation of SP2 and Time Window 1

[Mikeyds9]

We are planning on deploying windows XP sp2 soon and I haven't been able to allow users to postpone the installation during the deployment through SMS. We have SMS 2003 sp1. Is this possbile?

Also, I wanted to be able to have it install within a distribution window like every night between 5 and 11. I haven't been able to do this either. Is there a way to do this?

I am still learning how to use SMS 2003. I really just started using it about a week ago. I've been using this site as a guide for deploying SP2:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sms/sms2003/deploy/deployingwinxpsp2_3.mspx

 

[globalstrata]

Are you deploying through SUS? If you are, I would not really recommend. Why don't you deploy it as a normal app (Create a package and advertise) and then schedule it to run at night. Microsoft has a document for this.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/spdeploy.mspx

Gladys Rodriguez
GlobalStrata Solutions

http://www.globalstrata.com

 

[Mikeyds9]

Thanks for the post. Unfortunately, deploying sp2 to all of our machines will probably take a few weeks. I am using SMS and I can create a package and begin the advertisement at any time. But doing it this way will not allow for time distribution window. We prefer to have this done only at night. Currently this means that I would have to disable the advertisement every morning and reschedule it to run that night. When using software distribution in SMS you can''t just say distribute only between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. I am currently testing using a script to allow for a time window.

 

[globalstrata]

I think you misunderstood. If I remember correctly, that article also shows how to deploy it as an advertisement. I just finished the deployment of SP2 and I deployed it as a normal software advertisement with expiration date and time. I deployed only at night and to specific OUs.



Gladys Rodriguez
GlobalStrata Solutions

http://www.globalstrata.com

 

[Mikeyds9]

Are you saying that you select specifc OUs per night to deploy sp2? I noticed that when you create a software update it allows you to only have it run in a set time window. This way if for some reason some computers did not get the update it will atempt to update computers that didn't get the update each night at the same time without any interaction by me, until all were done. This is what I want to do with SP2. Someone told me that the time window feature is not included in software distribution, only in software updates. I can Also it doesn't seem to allow the users to postpone eventhough it is advertised to them. The only way I see around this is to write a script. I will check this again but if I set the advertisement to begin and occur every night at the same time a computer that is perhaps not on at that time may get the advertisement during the day time when it gets turned on. Let me know if you understand what I am saying and if you think I am doing something wrong. Or maybe something is not working properly.

Thanks

 

[globalstrata]

Yes. I created Collections using the Query functions instead of the direct assignment of computers. So I had collections in the following manner:

All Systems
All Computers in OU1
All Computers in OU1 and in Specific Subnet
All Computers in OU1, Specific Subnet and need SP2
All Computers in OU2
All Computers in OU2 and in Specific Subnet
All Computers in OU2, Specific Subnet and need SP2
And So on ....

Then I had a package for SP2 and created Advertisments that either ran on either collection level that I specified above. I put the time to advertise, time to make it mandatory and time to expire. Next day I ran the inventory and created a report. Since I ran the advertisement at night, I wrote some scripts for:

1. Wake on Lan - turning on any computer that has been turned off. For this, I used the command prompt freeware from

http://www.depicus.com

and I dumped information from an SMS query report that I created into a file.

2. Restart computers - I found that the SP2 installation was the most successful if I restarted most of the computers and hour or so before the installation. This way memory was clean of many loaded programs and any unclosed applications were released prior installation. For this, I used the SysInternal PsShutdown freeware tool (

http://www.sysinternal.com)

and also created a report that I dumped from SMS.

That way, I had a controlled timeframe for deployment and a controlled amount of computers.

Hope this helps,




Gladys Rodriguez
GlobalStrata Solutions

http://www.globalstrata.com

 

[globalstrata]

OOPSSS!! Forgot an s in the URL ..

http://www.sysinternals.com

Gladys Rodriguez
GlobalStrata Solutions

http://www.globalstrata.com