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zapateria
Feb 16, 2003
Won't Windows be installed on D: if you use the default image? I thought that's why you had to capture a new image.

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quackquackquack
Nov 10, 2002
That's if you just fish the .wim off the Vista/7 DVD.

You can install from source (it runs through Windows setup entirely), or you can install from a .wim you create.

We used to install from source for Vista, but with the silly number of post-SP2 Vista patches now out, I installed a bare copy of SP2 into a VM, updated it, then captured an image with imagex and switched to using that image, not changing any of the other TS steps.

Quebec Bagnet
Apr 28, 2009

mess with the honk
you get the bonk
Lipstick Apathy

spog posted:

I've got a question about MDT

As I understand it, the official process is:

1) add a default image to MDT
2) add appropriate task sequences
3) deploy to a reference machine
4) capture an image of this reference machine
5) create new deployment share using this captured image
6) create new task sequence
7) deploy to new machines

I think I must be missing something pretty basic here: why perform 4-6?

4 is a checkbox selection in MDT, so it seems to be the Right Way, but to me it just looks like you are making extra work. What am I missing?

I've been skipping 1-3 and just installing straight from a Windows disc and customizing that, but I haven't needed a fresh start in a while :shobon: Ideally you would skip 3-5 and have all your software as packages, which is something I'm going to try and set up for next semester along with putting the default profile on the network (we rely on creating it on the reference machine). That could also be useful for our terminal server environment, we could just run the apps as a task sequence and get an identical loadout.

spog
Aug 7, 2004

It's your own bloody fault.

peak debt posted:

Mostly for saving time during a large scale deployment.

...wisdomness...

quackquackquack posted:

I also skip 4-6 (both in MDT and SCCM).

....more wisdomness...

Derpes Simplex posted:

Ideally you would skip 3-5 and have all your software as packages,

...even more wisdomness

Thanks guys. that makes perfect sense.

I've been studying enterprise deployment and, for me, the most interesting part is the point at what one method becomes better than another one - which has lots of variables, depending on your exact company.

I've learn that if you read the 'Ticket' thread in SH/SHC at the same time as studying the official material, it is hard not to laugh in disbelief at the Utopian scenarios used in the books. They rarely mention crotchey old secretaries or moronic HR policies.

lol internet.
Sep 4, 2007
the internet makes you stupid
So...

I had my TS advertised to "All Unknown Computers" and "Windows Deployment" (collection I made.)

Users somehow started getting TS available to them... two of them clicked on it and ended up reformatting their machines.

Also, one of my coworkers went to do a mandatory visio 2010 install that ended up on 30 machines as well when it was suppose to be on 3.

I'm guessing this is due to my old counterpart (who was let go.) decided to clone 30 machines that already had a SCCM client installed...

Anyways, I'm hoping just uninstalling the SCCM client with SCCM Client Centre removes completely everything and it will automatically be installed with new IDs\new everything so I never run into this retarded problem again. Please tell me this is the case.

:bang:

quackquackquack
Nov 10, 2002

lol internet. posted:

...
I'm guessing this is due to my old counterpart (who was let go.) decided to clone 30 machines that already had a SCCM client installed...

Anyways, I'm hoping just uninstalling the SCCM client with SCCM Client Centre removes completely everything and it will automatically be installed with new IDs\new everything so I never run into this retarded problem again. Please tell me this is the case.

:bang:

What are you planning to use to fix the duplicate problem?

This article seemed useful: http://danielssccmworld.blogspot.com/2010/09/managing-conflicting-records-and.html

Muslim Wookie
Jul 6, 2005
lol internet., as frustrating as all that sounds I just have to point out that in these matters, users never "just somehow have the TS available to them".

I might end up proven wrong but SCCM doesn't muck up like that, it's invariably operator error.

quackquackquack
Nov 10, 2002

marketingman posted:

lol internet., as frustrating as all that sounds I just have to point out that in these matters, users never "just somehow have the TS available to them".

I might end up proven wrong but SCCM doesn't muck up like that, it's invariably operator error.

Check the section "Problems that can occur through duplicate GUIDs" from my link, it looks like different computers could effectively swap places in and out of the "Windows Deployment" collection as each reports in.

However, I'm curious why your OSD TS would ever be run as a non-mandatory advertisement? Why not PXE them, or push a mandatory TS?

As for Visio, over what period of time did these 30 installs happen? That one sounds like operator error unless it was over a long period of time, or you have really fast discovery intervals.

lol internet.
Sep 4, 2007
the internet makes you stupid

marketingman posted:

lol internet., as frustrating as all that sounds I just have to point out that in these matters, users never "just somehow have the TS available to them".

I might end up proven wrong but SCCM doesn't muck up like that, it's invariably operator error.

I wasn't blaming it on the users... I created a seperate collection and advertised it to it directly to avoid this completely.. as I noticed early on while playing with SCCM if I advertised to All systems\computers it would allow userse to do this.

I'm pretty sure the issue lies within duplicate client information as my predecessor was cloning computers that already had clients installed on them.

The visio issue lies the same. Coworker advertised to a non-dynamic colleciton (3 computers in.) When I looked at the status, the other computers appeared. All these computers are not "Advanced" clients either heh.

Post was kind of just a /rant thats all. In the end, I'm just hoping uninstalling the client, also removes any information tied to SCCM (as if it's never been installed before.)

lol internet.
Sep 4, 2007
the internet makes you stupid

quackquackquack posted:

However, I'm curious why your OSD TS would ever be run as a non-mandatory advertisement? Why not PXE them, or push a mandatory TS?

I only push mandatory TS to remote machines in other offices since there is no local IT personnel. Since the machines are sitting in the room with us, it's faster to move a record into a collection then update it then PXE boot instead of forcing mandatory and waiting in my experience anyways. (I haven't been doing much re-imaginge, mostly just deploying. I'm also in the process of building the driver packages for everything.) In general I don't like to keep collections with TS advertisements mandatory to them in case someone mistakenly moves a record into it.

Is there a way to PXE them without advertising?

Edit: reply != edit

lol internet. fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Mar 1, 2011

Swink
Apr 18, 2006
Left Side <--- Many Whelps
I have (another) MDT/WDS question. Hopefully its obvious but I've been so overloaded with this I cant find it.

I've got an image that I can deploy successfully using MDT. The client pulls down the files from the deploymentshare$, my task sequence and unattend.xml gets picked up and all is well.

Can I import the reference image into WDS as an "install image"? What are the advantages? If any? And how does the task sequence apply to that image once its loaded as an 'Install image' ?

quackquackquack
Nov 10, 2002
As much as I enjoy pandering to my mild OCD, is there any reason to uninstall pre 1.6u10 versions of java (when in-place upgrades began)?

I assume that I can push the newest version out via GP, and it will in-place upgrade 1.6u10 and above, and install beside anything newer.

Can I assume that if the newest version is installed, an older version (like 1.6u05) won't be prompting to update?

Cpt.Wacky
Apr 17, 2005

quackquackquack posted:

As much as I enjoy pandering to my mild OCD, is there any reason to uninstall pre 1.6u10 versions of java (when in-place upgrades began)?

I assume that I can push the newest version out via GP, and it will in-place upgrade 1.6u10 and above, and install beside anything newer.

Can I assume that if the newest version is installed, an older version (like 1.6u05) won't be prompting to update?

I don't know about update prompts, but you should remove old versions of Java for security reasons.

Honey Im Homme
Sep 3, 2009

On the subject of MDT and deployment, here is a fantastic video with Mark Russinovich which basically works through everything you need to know.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/ff653476.aspx?ITPID=istream

skipdogg
Nov 29, 2004
Resident SRT-4 Expert

Honey Im Homme posted:

On the subject of MDT and deployment, here is a fantastic video with Mark Russinovich which basically works through everything you need to know.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/ff653476.aspx?ITPID=istream

Thanks for this, going to watch it tomorrow at work.

AcridWhistle
Aug 20, 2003

Feasting on the flesh of a recently killed zombie probably wasn't the smartest of moves

quackquackquack posted:

As much as I enjoy pandering to my mild OCD, is there any reason to uninstall pre 1.6u10 versions of java (when in-place upgrades began)?

I think starting with 1.6u20 or 21 that it uninstalls previous versions. I may be wrong.

quackquackquack posted:

Can I assume that if the newest version is installed, an older version (like 1.6u05) won't be prompting to update?
JRE and logic? :cawg:

quackquackquack
Nov 10, 2002
Ok, I imagine I will end up pushing the newest out, then running one of those massive msiexec.exe /x scripts to clean the rest.

Cpt.Wacky
Apr 17, 2005

AcridWhistle posted:

I think starting with 1.6u20 or 21 that it uninstalls previous versions. I may be wrong.

It was 1.6u10. WPKG has the msiexec commands to uninstall old versions: http://wpkg.org/Java#Uninstalling_Old_Versions

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

djben posted:

32 bit java on 64-bit Windows is definitely a pain. There is an issue with the Java installer running in the 64-bit command shell. I spent a good bit of time searching around for an easy solution (I actually got it working by extracting the msi manually but that sucks). Many hours spent in regmon and filemon... not very fun.

I have resolved the problem by modifying a registry key used by the SYSTEM account that initiates the silent Java install.

I took a screenshot of my own Kaseya script/procedure for deploying Java where you'll see the registry key I had to set for the installer and how I leverage it:

http://files.kaseya.com/sftp/javaupdate.png

The key you need to change:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-18\ProfileImagePath

Typically, it has a value of "%systemroot%\system32\config\systemprofile", data type reg_sz.

For the 32-bit Java installer to work silently when run as a SYSTEM account on a 64-bit machine, it can be set to "%systemroot%\syswow64\config\systemprofile". I'd recommend changing it back to the original value once the install completes.

Hopefully Sun fixes their installer soon, before they run out of money sueing Google ;)

Since I just had to deal with this myself again, I feel like quoting to point out that this exact method is still needed for 6u24.

lol internet.
Sep 4, 2007
the internet makes you stupid

quackquackquack posted:

What are you planning to use to fix the duplicate problem?

This article seemed useful: http://danielssccmworld.blogspot.com/2010/09/managing-conflicting-records-and.html

Thanks for the link. It put me in the right direction. What sucks about SCCM most is a lot of the information is slightly outdated/broken links.

Anyways, with a bit of reading from link jumping through your link.

I ran a report to verify the duplicated SMS GUIDs. There was like the 30 machines which all had the SMS GUIDs.

I ended up using SCCM client center to force a new SMS GUID. Computer management to restart the SMS Agent. Then again client center to initiate a DDR.

This probably could of all been scripted but for 30 computers would of probably spent similar amount of time doing it.

Spudman
Feb 5, 2004

Post nudes plz
Don't worry, it's perfectly rational!
I have 6 DCs and 3 sites, 2 DCs per site. Each DC is Windows 2008 x64... I'm considering performing an adprep /forestprep and /domainprep on my live environment so that I can begin introducing 2008 R2 DCs into the mix. I don't really foresee any problems, but anyone have any experience with this and have any considerations before I go loving up our domain?

(Update resume, leave town...)

Syano
Jul 13, 2005
Dude just type the commands and walk away. Its not like brain surgery.

And 6 DCs for 3 sites? Overkill much?

Spudman
Feb 5, 2004

Post nudes plz
Don't worry, it's perfectly rational!
Alright, alright... I'm just a careful administrator, give me a break!

edit: I don't really feel like it's overkill to have two 2DCs... the load is spread across the DCs pretty well, it's a 24/7 production environment, and the sites are far apart, so if a DC goes down at a site, it's nice to know that I can run on the other one until I have time to drive the 50 miles out there to fix it.

Spudman fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Mar 3, 2011

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

Spudman posted:

I have 6 DCs and 3 sites, 2 DCs per site. Each DC is Windows 2008 x64... I'm considering performing an adprep /forestprep and /domainprep on my live environment so that I can begin introducing 2008 R2 DCs into the mix. I don't really foresee any problems, but anyone have any experience with this and have any considerations before I go loving up our domain?

(Update resume, leave town...)

If you're that paranoid, you don't need to upgrade the functional level to add 2008 R2 DCs, they'll just operate at 2008 functional level. Hell, you can join a 2008 DC to an NT domain and keep it at the NT functional level.

Also, I don't think you can raise the functional level to anything higher than the lowest DC, so you'd have to replace all your 2008 DCs to raise to R2.

Spudman
Feb 5, 2004

Post nudes plz
Don't worry, it's perfectly rational!
I actually don't plan on raising the functional levels at all. At least not right now. Just upgrade the DCs. Is it completely 100% necessary? No, but obviously it's thinking toward the future since Microsoft's future endeavors are all going to be focused on R2. Plus I have a DC at each site right now with WDS on it... and the R2 version of WDS is so much better than the 2k8 one. Just set up WDS on a member server and leave your DCs alone, you say? Well I'd be doing the upgrade eventually anyway... but thanks for allaying my paranoia. :)

edit: Also, you can't put a 2k8 DC into an NT domain. You could put it into a 2000 domain, but not until you forestprep and domainprep. Raising functional levels is a separate issue altogether.

FISHMANPET posted:

If you're that paranoid, you don't need to upgrade the functional level to add 2008 R2 DCs, they'll just operate at 2008 functional level. Hell, you can join a 2008 DC to an NT domain and keep it at the NT functional level.

Also, I don't think you can raise the functional level to anything higher than the lowest DC, so you'd have to replace all your 2008 DCs to raise to R2.

Spudman fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Mar 3, 2011

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

Spudman posted:

I actually don't plan on raising the functional levels at all. At least not right now. Just upgrade the DCs. Is it completely 100% necessary? No, but obviously it's thinking toward the future since Microsoft's future endeavors are all going to be focused on R2. Plus I have a DC at each site right now with WDS on it... and the R2 version of WDS is so much better than the 2k8 one. Just set up WDS on a member server and leave your DCs alone, you say? Well I'd be doing the upgrade eventually anyway... but thanks for allaying my paranoia. :)

edit: Also, you can't put a 2k8 DC into an NT domain. You could put it into a 2000 domain, but not until you forestprep and domainprep. Raising functional levels is a separate issue altogether.

Welp, that's what I get for not reading closely enough. And now that I think about it, when I setup my most recent domain on 2008 R2, 2000 was the lowest possible level it supported.

Honey Im Homme
Sep 3, 2009

skipdogg posted:

Thanks for this, going to watch it tomorrow at work.

This wasn't actually the video I meant to post, its still good though.

Here's the one I meant:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/simonmay/archive/2010/10/13/great-mdt-2010-videos.aspx

Honey Im Homme fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Mar 3, 2011

peak debt
Mar 11, 2001
b& :(
Nap Ghost

FISHMANPET posted:

Since I just had to deal with this myself again, I feel like quoting to point out that this exact method is still needed for 6u24.

Couldn't you instead do
code:
c:\windows\syswow64\cmd.exe /c java-installer-6u24.exe /s
to run it in the 32 bit environment with the proper virtualized registry folders

Edit: I just tried that out of curiosity and it didn't work. gently caress Sun/Oracle.

peak debt fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Mar 4, 2011

lol internet.
Sep 4, 2007
the internet makes you stupid
Gonna be setting up the update portion of SCCM to takeover the WSUS roles.

Any recommended reads/articles?

Muslim Wookie
Jul 6, 2005

lol internet. posted:

Gonna be setting up the update portion of SCCM to takeover the WSUS roles.

Any recommended reads/articles?

I don't know your setup but the way I got lauded for my SCCM work was by never loving it up (because I built 2 test environments, one at home, one at work, and did all the changes there first, and made inevitably hundreds of newbie mistakes and ran into undocumented situations in those environments rather than production).

Another thing to consider is if WSUS is working fine, do you *really* need to transfer to SCCM? In my cases it's always been yes because I'm an SCCM whore of the worst kind (I've deployed Linux via SCCM rather than set up Puppet).

peak debt
Mar 11, 2001
b& :(
Nap Ghost
Tip of mine: Unless you have a setup with a lot of branch offices, don't bother using SCCM for Updates. The one nice thing about it is that you can have the distribution points architecture create a lot of local update servers so you don't overload the VPN whenever a patch day comes.
The downsides are that authorizing new updates in SCCM is a lot more cumbersome, and the reporting is at best almost as good as WSUS, in some points it is actually quite a bit worse.

Muslim Wookie
Jul 6, 2005

peak debt posted:

Tip of mine: Unless you have a setup with a lot of branch offices, don't bother using SCCM for Updates. The one nice thing about it is that you can have the distribution points architecture create a lot of local update servers so you don't overload the VPN whenever a patch day comes.
The downsides are that authorizing new updates in SCCM is a lot more cumbersome, and the reporting is at best almost as good as WSUS, in some points it is actually quite a bit worse.

This what I was trying to get at. Don't do it unless you actually have to. And for branch office distribution points, you could always just roll a downstream WSUS server.

quackquackquack
Nov 10, 2002
We're a pretty small shop, but we made the same decision - SCCM performing Windows Updates just didn't make sense.

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

marketingman posted:

Another thing to consider is if WSUS is working fine, do you *really* need to transfer to SCCM? In my cases it's always been yes because I'm an SCCM whore of the worst kind (I've deployed Linux via SCCM rather than set up Puppet).

I want to know about this.

lol internet.
Sep 4, 2007
the internet makes you stupid

marketingman posted:

Another thing to consider is if WSUS is working fine, do you *really* need to transfer to SCCM? In my cases it's always been yes because I'm an SCCM whore of the worst kind (I've deployed Linux via SCCM rather than set up Puppet).

Yeahhh.. well I don't have much of a choice. Perhaps it's to take full advantage of SCCM to justify it's purchase... I really don't want to.. but I don't have much of a choice. Perhaps when they see the difference compared to WSUS they might reconsider.

Also, we don't use any other distribution servers in the network. Just one main one and it shoots everything over the VPN. A majority of the other offices are less then 10 users with the exception of one which is ~100.

I also have a couple questions off the top of my head:

- Anyone know how to make to convert bootable ISO -> WIM? I'd like to make a .wim of like a bootable diagnostics disc (ie. seatools/memtest.) and advertise it to all systems so I could always just pxe boot to it.

- How do you know who owns what computer when it comes to deploying software to it? Do you use a separate asset tracking program? (Search for user, see computers assigned to?) or is there something you do through SCCM? I know there is a report which tells last logged on, I've used it a couple times and sometimes it comes up with no results. Some times it does work quite well. (A lot of our users don't move pc to pc.)

- Anyway to get remote assistance working in Windows 7 through SCCM? In my experience it doesn't work for Win7.

Also.. I don't mind with the WSUS/SCCM setup stuff because it's great resume work (for me anyways.)


lol internet. fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Mar 8, 2011

quackquackquack
Nov 10, 2002

lol internet. posted:

- How do you know who owns what computer when it comes to deploying software to it? Do you use a separate asset tracking program? (Search for user, see computers assigned to?) or is there something you do through SCCM? I know there is a report which tells last logged on, I've used it a couple times and sometimes it comes up with no results. Some times it does work quite well. (A lot of our users don't move pc to pc.)

There's 'last logged on', which can be inaccurate for what you need, especially since it sometimes says "SYSTEM".

There's 'frequent user', which only works on Vista/7 (iirc).

Are your users local admins on their own boxes? That's how it works where I am, so I used a baseline configuration script trick to pull that. (I can find the link when I get to work).

You could also manually store the name of the computer user in a file/reg on that local computer, and have SCCM inventory pull that.

I use a FileMaker database, because that's the tool I had. It pulls all of the above (except the file/reg), and shows it on the inventory entry or the computer. I also added in a manually populated 'user' field, and once a week I look for computers for which it is not populated and populate it based on those other fields.

I'd love to hear of a better way to do this.

Cpt.Wacky
Apr 17, 2005

quackquackquack posted:

I'd love to hear of a better way to do this.

I know this thread is pretty heavily biased towards SCCM and other MS products, but I have posted a few times about WPKG which works well in our environment of Samba 3 and XP workstations. The short version is that I manually keep track of which user is assigned to which computer in a spreadsheet. I use WPKG to assign software to profiles and profiles to computers based on Windows computer name.


Here are the gory details...

WPKG is a JavaScript file that handles installing, updating and removing software. It is typically run as SYSTEM by WPKG Client, a service that runs on Startup. The configuration for WPKG is a handful of XML files with fairly simple structure: packages.xml, profiles.xml and hosts.xml.

Packages.xml defines pieces of software with version number, configurable checks to determine if they're installed, and then groups of commands to be run in order to install, upgrade, downgrade, or remove the software. You can put any executable command into these command statements. Most packages just use msiexec, but some software needs customization with reg commands, copying additionally files, running vbscript, etc.

code:
<package
  id="7zip"
  name="7-Zip"
  revision="%version%"
  reboot="false"
  priority="50">

  <variable name="version" value="4.65" />
  <check type="uninstall" condition="exists" path="7-Zip %version%" />
  <install cmd='msiexec /qn /norestart /i "%SOFTWARE%\apps\7zip\7zip-%version%.msi"' />
  <upgrade cmd='msiexec /qn /norestart /i "%SOFTWARE%\apps\7zip\7zip-%version%.msi"' />
  <remove cmd='msiexec /qn /x "%SOFTWARE%\apps\7zip\7zip-%version%.msi"' />
</package>
Hosts.xml defines your hosts based on the Windows computer name, along with the ability to do some basic pattern matching. Each host is then assigned one or more Profiles.

code:
<host name="qwertyQ7JDF1S" profile-id="SomeDude" />
...
<host name=".+" profile-id="default" />
Profiles.xml defines groups of Packages. They can also depend on other Profiles.

code:
<profile id="default">
  <package package-id="firefox" />
  <package package-id="java" />
  <package package-id="office2003-sp3" />
  <package package-id="office2007-compatibility" />
  ...
</profile>
<profile id="SomeDude">
  <depends profile-id="default" />
  <package package-id="skype" />
  <package package-id="vmware-view" />
</profile>
So in our environment we have a basic set of software that everyone gets. This all goes into the default Profile, which is assigned to every host. Some staff need specific applications, so I create a Host entry that matches their computer name exactly, and create a Profile with their name. The profile depends on the default profile, and then I assign the software they need to that profile.

You can also define a Profile and apply it to multiple computers, like if an entire department needed a certain set of applications.

If user gets a new computer or moves to a computer in a different office, I just need to go change the computer name on the Host entry and the next time the old computer starts up it will remove the extra software, and the new one will install it. You can also force WPKG to run by restarting the WPKG service, but I try to avoid this except when testing on my own equipment since some packages need to kill processes before the update can run.

mattisacomputer
Jul 13, 2007

Philadelphia Sports: Classy and Sophisticated.

Most of the discussion here is about SCCM and other sexy utilities that my school district can't afford :(

When I first started here, we were using Altiris DS6.9SP4. It's been okay for the most part, but failing rapidly now and we're experiencing a ton of issues. Our licensing was current so I built a new server to play around with DS7.1 on. I haven't put it in production yet, as I want to iron everything out and get to know it pretty well.

From what I can understand, they've stripped remote control of the active session from DS7.0 and up, is this correct? I had heard that they included a pcAnywhere subscription with DS7.0 and up to supplement this, but Symantec told me it's only available to people who purchase the Altiris CMS suite.

Now we're faced with the decision of to renew Altiris DS, upgrade to Altiris CMS, or move to another product. Does anyone have any recommendation of alternative products to Altiris DS6.9? Ideally it would have the same features as DS6.9 but work with Windows 7 as I want to migrate to it within the next year.

As for budget, lets say about 5,000$ (roughly) for 700~ clients max.

quackquackquack
Nov 10, 2002
Does your school district have decent pricing with Microsoft? Although we're not the best example (relatively large university), I picked up SCCM and CALs for 350 PCs for sub $3k for my department.

What specific features are you looking for? Imaging, inventory, software deployment, remote control, other?

Solely for Windows?

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mattisacomputer
Jul 13, 2007

Philadelphia Sports: Classy and Sophisticated.

We might actually, I had no idea it was that cheap.

Imaging is the least important, we have a pretty basic Ghost/Pxe/WinPE setup that works well for our XP clients, but I do like SCCM for its Windows 7 capabilities.

The big thing we used from DS6.9 was instant control of the users active session. I liked being able to hop in, see what they're seeing, and fix it under their logon.

Inventory was really good too. I also want to setup wake on lan and other power management features so we can shutdown the labs and such from our office. Once I get the hang of it, software deployment will be be as well.

We're a Windows only shop, running about 600 XP clients and 10~ windows 7.

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