Client installation methods & logon script 1

[pwhitham]

Hi
I recently re-installed our site SMS server after a nasty incident !
It's currently sitting on NT4 SP6, and is using SP3 quite happily. My problem is this:
We use a flag file (in the form of a .txt on the client's C drive) to specify whether the PC can have the SMS client via the NT login script, (we have several PC groups which should not use it.) If the file is present, the script then calls SMSBOOT1.exe from the server. The client installs, but does not install any components. (Maybe because I haven't got Windows networking logon client installation enabled ??.) Anyway, if I was to enable this, does it then proceed to install the client software on every PC which is discovered, or will it only get the PCs with the flag file (which have had SMSBOOT1.exe run)

Any assistance would be gratefully accepted !

 

[Stormer]

Don't quote me on this one but when you configure your discovery methods make sure you don't check the box which says Modify users logon script ( this put's the command to execute smsboot1.exe in the logon script and everyone who logs on in the site will install the client ) then only users with the flag should install the client.

 

[Jpoandl]

One thing you could do is change from normal BAT file logon scripts to KixTart logon scripts. Kixtart can be downloaded from

http://www.kixtart.org.

It is free and widely used in the NT/2K world. The advantage of Kixtart is that it allows you to write more complex logon scripts with built in macros.

For example, using Kixtart, you can write a script to map the K: drive to \\servername\share if the user belongs to the "MARKETING" global group. Stuff like this.

It also has the ability to check C:\flagfile.txt before launching the smsls.bat file to install the client.

Kixtart is very easy to learn and to implement. In fact, you will not have to touch any workstations or reboot the domain controller to implement. Piece of cake.

I wrote a kixtart script to uninstall LANDESK (Intel's version of SMS) and then install SMS based on IP subnet. This way I was able to roll out the client in a controlled manner.

If your component are not coming down, I would verify that your site settings (for remote control, hardware inventory scans, etc...) are configured properly. But you may also want to check that your boundaries are configured properly...

Many people have problem setting up the SITE BOUNDARIES. You have to consider that the SUBNETs that define your site, will always use the client SUBNET MASK. Here's an example:

Say your everyone subnet starts with 10.x.x.x You might think that this is a class A address scheme. However, all clients are configured with a 255.255.0.0 subnet mask. Therefore, if you were to put 10.0.0.0 in your site boundaries, you would only pick up the client in the 10.0.x.x subnet...eventhough you have clients in the 10.1.0.0, 10.2.0.0, 10.3.0.0, 10.4.0.0...etc. Unfortunately, in the scenerio, you will have place all of your subnets into your SITE BOUNDARIES (10.0.0.0, 10.1.0.0, 10.2.0.0, 10.3.0.0, 10.4.0.0...etc)

Check your boundaries...this is the most common mistake. Also, check you schedule for network discovery...make sure that it has already tried to run. If not, schedule network discovery to run for a few hours...

Your clients should start appearing under COLLECTIONS...

-hope this helps.. Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2000

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