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Group Policies and msi

Offline newburns

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Group Policies and msi
« on: January 29, 2013, 07:12:28 AM »
Is it possible to install .msi files using group policy if SME 8.0 is my main Domain Controller?

Basically, I want to silent install Spark, preconfigured. I need it to do everything so that users won't know what's happening until the screen is ready for use.
SME 8.0
Quad 6600
8gb DDR2 800
8 TB RAID 5
Dual Gigabit NIC
I Still Don't KNOW WHAT I AM DOING. Please, don't assume I know anything about Linux or Centos, I just know hardware

Offline mmccarn

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Re: Group Policies and msi
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2013, 02:09:10 PM »
This is not a direct answer, but...

I don't know if SME 8 provides group policy support to windows clients, but you should be able to write a script that remotely installs whatever you need using psexec from the sysinternals pstools suite.

Offline Stefano

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Re: Group Policies and msi
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2013, 02:44:47 PM »
Is it possible to install .msi files using group policy if SME 8.0 is my main Domain Controller?

Basically, I want to silent install Spark, preconfigured. I need it to do everything so that users won't know what's happening until the screen is ready for use.

you have 2 questions here:
- does SME8 support group policy (for windows client)?
- how can I use SME8 to (silently and in background) install msi packages on SME8 DC domain clients?

first answer: as long as your clients are xp or older (i.e. not vista, W7, W8), you can use poledit to create group plicy (search the forums, you'll find more info)

second answer: take a look at wpkg

NOTE: never tested on SME, should work.. if you manage to make it run on SME, please report here (preferably in the wiki) your how to, thank you