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Disclaimer: Any FAQs below that require system configuration changes should be tested thoroughly in your environment. While I've tested all of these FAQs on my own systems, I make no warranties as to their effects on your environment.

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQs » Software Installation Policy


We're trying to deploy some apps using Software Installation but although the machine appears to run the install, it fails to install the app. The event log entry says that the "source installation file is not available", but we've permissioned the share and files where the package is so that Everyone has Read access. Check out this post on the GPTalk mailing list for a variety of suggestions: http://www.freelists.org/archives/gptalk/02-2007/msg00083.html [Back to top]
What happens, behind the scenes, when I use the "Redeploy" button on an application that has been deployed already. For any client machines that have installed the application that was deployed via GPO, when that application is redeployed, the client will essentially reinstall the application during its next foreground processing cycle. For example, if you redeploy an application that was machine assigned, at the next reboot of any client who had installed the application via that GPO, that client will perform a reinstallation of the application. Specifically what happens is the client is instructed to do a Windows Installer repair with the options omusv. Those options essentially reinstall most (but not all) major pieces of a package (for more details on what those options actually do, check out http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314881). So, keep in mind that when you do a redeploy, all clients that had previously installed that application via the GPO will attempt to reinstall that application. This can sometimes have a big impact on the network if many clients are hitting a package on a server share nearly simultaneously. [Back to top]
Can I change the path of a package in a GPO once the package has been deployed to my clients? The answer is, there is no supported way to change a package path without impacting clients who have already received the package. This is because the path to the package is stored in a number of places, including in AD, in the .aas file found in the GPT portion of the GPO, and most notably, on the client. If you need to move a package to a new server, the best solution is to try and keep the server name the same (or alias the old server name) or better yet, use DFS for all of your packages so that you can move the package around without changing the path. [Back to top]
I would like to deploy an application setup via Software Installation policy but the setup is not an .MSI file. Is there any workaround? Yes, but there are some limitations involved. There is a way to deploy legacy .exe setups for use in GPO-based software deployment using something called a ZAP (Zero Application Packaging) file. A ZAP file is simply an INI style file with a .zap extension. However, ZAP files have two significant limitations: They can only be published per-user--they can not be assigned to computer or user. They do not benefit from the privilege escalation feature that MSI-based packages do, when deployed via Group Policy. This means that the user who initiates the ZAP-based installation from Add/Remove Programs must have sufficient privilege to install the application Beyond these two limitations. ZAP-based deployment can be a quick and dirty way to get an application distributed without having to take the time to re-package it into .MSI format. A little known fact is that when this feature was introduced in Windows 2000, Microsoft product team members referred to it as "Crappy ZAW", where ZAW stood for Zero Admin. Windows--an old term from NT 4 days! In any case, here is a sample .zap file created to deploy Winzip 9.0: [Application] FriendlyName = "Winzip 9.0" SetupCommand = "\\server\packages\winzip90.exe" DisplayVersion = 9.0 [Ext] ZIP= This ZAP file is pretty self explanatory. The FriendlyName key represents what you see in Add/Remove Programs when you go to select the package. The SetupCommand key lists the UNC path to the setup .exe file (Note that this must be a UNC--a drive letter path won't work). The DisplayVersion key is optional and shows the version of the application as it appears in the GPO. Finally, the extension section lists the extensions associated with this application. By using this EXT section, you guarantee that the application setup will automatically be started if the user clicks on a file with that extension (in this example, .zip), even if they don't explicitly run the setup from Add/Remove Programs. This is sort of a poor man's "install on first use" in the absence of a .MSI advertisement. Note that the command you provide should also include any appropriate switches if you want the installation to run silently. Otherwise, it will just run interactively, requiring the user to answer prompts along the way. [Back to top]

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