SMS 2.0 advertisement problem 1

[flaurijssens]

Servers: SMS 2.0 SP5 on W2K SP3
Clients: Windows XP

When I create a mandatory advertisement for a program that should run ASAP for every user that logs on, it only runs the program for the first user. For the next user that logs on, the advertisement does not show up at all in Advertised Programs Monitor nor in the Advertised Programs Wizard, no matter how long I wait or log off and log on.

When I open the APM or APW, and press F5 to refresh the screen, all of a sudden the installation for these packages starts.

When I look at Advertisement Status, the program is received.

Can anyone tell me what's going on?

 

[tbrennans]

UNless I've missed something all these years (its possible)
I don't think you can do what your asking.

I'm not aware of installing per user (I guess unless you were using a group collection but even still I don't see how this could work.)

When a package is installed it makes a mif file and when client gets an offer, it checks to make sure it doesnt have it already by checking if that mif is there. If its there it doesnt install again. (unless you delete the mif)

there ism't a mif file made for each user UNLESS you were to place the mif in a variable directory like %username% which refered to the users temp dir in thier profile but I havent tried that.

one other thing with msi files you can install to one user or all users.

Currently Logged-on User:
MSIEXEC.exe /i mypackage.msi ALLUSERS=""

All Users:
MSIEXEC.exe /i mypackage.msi ALLUSERS="1"

but not users one by one as far as I have ever heard.


Tim B

 

[flaurijssens]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;271122

Am I misinterpreting something or is the "Advanced Scenarios" section in mentioned article bogus?

Why does it work when I press F5 in APM to refresh the screen?

 

[tbrennans]

From that article it says it was...a function of the original design that was fixed after the install of SP4


So after sp 4 its not supposed to happen anymore, however it goes on to say

NOTE: Users who are not notified of new advertisements can still run the SMS Advertised Programs Wizard to locate and to install programs

So I guess it was "fixed" to not work unless you run the wizard :-|

Tim B

 

[tbrennans]

Yeeeesh reading that q article is enough to make your head explode....long day

 

[flaurijssens]

That's why I stopped reading...

I'm still stumped over the F5 issue.

It appeared SMS was capable of doing this.

 

[flaurijssens]

I'm trying to configure some per-user settings without creating a huge login script. I'll try to put them in a MSI package and use the ALLUSERS parameter. Thanks.

 

[tbrennans]

Good luck!!

One other thought is is you install as an admin you can manually add in the package to put in the shortcuts to icons on the desktop or the start menu to the program your installing, if thats whats up with the user by user install stuff!

Tim B

 

[coulters]

Don't know if I'm understanding this or not, but you can select for a program to install "per user". The selection is in the Properties of the Program of the Package: Direct from SMS Help.

When program is assigned
When Program can run (in the Environment tab) is set to Only when a user is logged on, you can specify how the program is assigned to users.
Note On 16-bit clients, advertised programs will run only for the first user who logs on.

Run once for first user who logs on
The program should run only once on the computer. This is the default setting.
For example, a virus checker only needs to run once on the client.

Run once for every user who logs on
The program should run once for each new user who logs on.

 

[tbrennans]

MS said in that q article they "fixed" that from happening after sp4 (don't know if they fixed the help file though :-o)