ReRun Advertisement

[GerhardR]

Hi,

we often install software via SMS to about 500 clients. Afterwards there are always some clients on which the software installation didn't work correctly. Very often only small changes are necessary to get the installation completed.

It would be perfect if I could tell sms to ReRun the Advertisement only to clients on which the installation had an error. Is this somehow possible?
Now I have to install manually or I create a temporary collection with the relevant clients and run the advertisement again on this new collection.

Thanks for your help!
Gerhard

 

[ncotton]

If you create a fixed or manditory single assignement, "ReRun Advertisement" will only be sent to machines that actually returned a failure code. Any machines returning a sucess code will not recieve the rerun request.

For more information on this, see my post here
NCotton on ReRunning Manditory Assignments

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[GerhardR]

Hi!

I've testet it now - ReRun Advertisement ReRuns the Advertisements on any of my clients - doesn't matter if the previous attempt was successful or not...

I tested it the following way:
- 2 clients
- client A with a directory c:\temp\test\ - client B without
- batch wich copies two files in the temp\test directory

FIRST RUN: client A success, client B failure

Then I createt the test directory on client B and deleted all the files in the test directory of client A

RERUN advertisement: client A got the files again; client B success...

Can you imagine why that can be?

Thank you and friendly regards,
Gerhard

 

[ncotton]

You have to make sure when you create the advertisment, you assign it to run right away

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[tbrennans]

To me that test made perfect sense.

The 1st time with a batch it couldnt write the file to the folder because it wasnt there,

the second time it worked on both as they had the folder.


from David Hoelscher [MSFT]

Right-clicking on the advertisement and selecting " Re-run Advertisement" will re-run a program that previously ran successfully if the advertisement was first advertised with a mandatory, time-based schedule (as opposed to a trigger such as ASAP, Logon, or Logoff). You can also open the advertisement, click on the Schedule tab, and add another time-based mandatory schedule if you prefer to provide a specific time. The key is that the first schedule should not be a trigger, " Assign immediately after this event."

Read this and take a look at Henricks script:

http://www.myitforum.com/articles/8/view.asp?id=6841

 

[GerhardR]

Hi,

Yes - but the first time it runs it successed on client A - so it shouldn't run a second time there - should it?

But thanks anyway,
Gerhard

 

[GerhardR]

Thanks for the link tbrennans! There it stands:"An advertisement with an additional assignment is run on all clients that receive it, whether they ran it before or not."

So it will run always again.

 

[ncotton]

us policy spy and look at the ReRun attribute field of the software distribution policy on the clients with different configurations.

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[GerhardR]

Hi ncotton,

I startet policy spy and connected to the client. Unfortunately I don't see anything? Under Requested-Machine-Configurations or Settings - nothing appears.
Am I doing something wrong?

Friendly regards,
Gerhard

 

[ncotton]

go to the client
Policy Spy > Machine > Settings > ccm_SoftwareDistribution > ADV_AdvertisementID="blahblah" > Inherited Properties > string ADV_RepeatRunBehaviour = RerunAlways or RerunOnlyIfFailed

If policy = RerunAlways = will always rerun everytime you rerun advert

if policy = rerunonlyiffailed = will only rerun if the package has never been sucessfully run before on that client.


if you have run sucessfully before and you want to rerun it again on that client for any particular reason. Go to this following reg location and remove references to the problem package.

HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\Execution History\%package%

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[ncotton]

By the way, this doesn't this also means that if the program has EXECUTED sucessfully as far as SMS is concerned, and has no error handelling in it, and no return. If the program falls over, SMS still considers it a success. Only if the SMS launch fails (sec reasons on launch, file missing etc), or the program returns specific error exit codes, will SMS know that the package installation has failed.

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[ncotton]

Appologies, the above registry key, the package id actually lies one level lower in

[blue]
HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\Execution History\[/blue][red]System\[/red][green]%package%[/green]

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[GerhardR]

ok - thank you. found the policy. summing up - rerun an advertisement means that it reruns on all clients (no difference if formally run was success or not). at least here it works this way!

thank you
gerhard

 

[ncotton]

No problem. Don't thank me, pay me.

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant