Software Distribution-SCCM 2007

This article addresses the step by step procedure for Software distribution feature in SCCM 2007 .

Software Distribution Process

Pre-requisites:

1. There should be an installation media or Network installation share of the software that has to be advertised.
2. Appropriate permissions are required to perform the following actions.

A] Creating a collection of Target systems

B] Creating a package for software distribution.

C] Creating one or more programs specific to the package.

D] Distribute the packages to the required distribution points

E] Advertise the programs to the systems of the collection created in the 1st step.

A] Creating a collection of target systems :

Create a collection as per the requirements. You can use this post to understand how to create a collection.

B] Creating a package for software distribution.

1. On SCCM console, go to Software Distribution node, right click on Packages and select New -> Package. The New Package Wizard will start. Enter the required information.
       Here, I am creating a package of Microsoft SCCM log viewer ' Trace32'

2. On Data Source tab, check This package contains source files and click Set to select a source directory. On Set Source Directory window, select the appropriate path. Following is an example to select a network share as a source: \\sccm1\sw\trace32.

Select “Use a compressed copy...“option to use the compressed copy of the package when updating distribution points later.

Enable “Binary differential compression" option.

If the package has to stay in the cache on the client system, check "persist content in the client cache".

Note that, by default content in the cache will be deleted after 24 hours.( i.e. after the program is  run on the client system)

3. On Data Access tab Select Access the distribution folder through common ConfigMgr package share.

Common ConfigMgr Package share is nothing but SMSPKG(Drive letter)$  like 

SMSPKGE$ where E is the drive letter. It stores  all the packages that are distributed.

Additional information:

SMSPKG folder contains the compressed packages

SMSPKG(drive letter)$ and SMSPKG are different folders.

4. Set the sending priority of this package between other packages when advertising multiple packages to a same collection. The priority will be ignored if a collection is expecting to receive only one package at a time.

The three types of levels are:

High, medium and low. Here, the default one 'Medium' is selected.

5. Select the default Use package properties for status MIF matching.

6. The next screen will show the security rights for this package. Click next

Summary page will appear next. Click Next.

SCCM will process the new package creating and you will see the Wizard Completed page.

C] Creating programs specific to the package:

Go to the package created -> right click on Programs -> new -> program 

Name the program, and click on browse. Browse to the location of the installable and choose the executable that you intend to run. Click open.

Choose how you would want the installation to be carried out. In this case we have chosen “Normal” option. Click next.

Requirements: Enter the estimated disk space that is required to run the program and the time limit for the program to run.

And also specify the platform on which the program can be run, there are various supported client platforms available to use.

Here, I have specified the estimated disk space as 2 MB ,the time limit as 2 hours and the compatibility for all the platforms.

Specify conditions for running the program. In this case I choose “Whether or not the user is logged on” and “run with administrative rights” options. Choose these options at your own discretion to meet organizational requirements. Click next. 

In the advance settings, below options are available.

· Run another program first- if we need to run another program before running the current program, this option can be checked and the appropriate package can be selected.

· Suppress program notifications- the program notification can be suppressed on the advertised clients.

· Disable this program…: this program can be disabled on the advertised clients.

· Allow this program to be installed using task sequence….. : When this option is selected, the program can be advertised using Task sequence. Here, we are not running any program first and the programs are also not suppressed.

Click next, since this application is not .msi file, I am skipping this. Click Next.

On the MOM maintenance mode, check the options if there are monitoring setup.

Click Next and Click Close to complete the creation of the program.

D] Distribute the packages to the required distribution points

Go to the package created -> Distribution Points-> Manage Distribution Points-> select “Copy the package to new distribution points” option.

Select all or Select the specific distribution points that you want to copy the package to.

Click Next and Verify the Package name:

Check the summary and click on close to complete the Distribution.

E] Advertise the programs to the systems of the collection created in the 1st step.

Go to site database -> Computer management -> Software Distribution -> Advertisements -> Browse to the appropriate sub folder or create e new one if needed. Here we have “Test Advertisement” folder. Right click on the folder-> new -> Advertisement.

New Advertisement Wizard will open up as shown below. Enter the appropriate name, browse through the packages & select appropriate package (program will be auto populated)

Select the specific collection that has to be targeted; here we are targeting ‘All Windows XP Systems’. Click Next.

Schedule: 

On Schedule, we specify the “when” of a program. We can specify the following settings on this tab.

1. Advertisement start time: mention at what time the advertisement should start

2. Advertisement expiry: mention the time of advertisement expiration.

3. Mandatory assignment: After a specific period of time or ASAP, we can make the advertisement run mandatorily. This helps in keeping the computer compliance levels and thwarting any virus or malware attacks.

4. Enable WOL: Wake on LAN allows us to wake up the computer at specific time if power management feature is enabled.

5. Priority: Three levels- low, medium and high are available, select as per the requirements.

6. Program re-run behaviour helps in running the program as desired.

We can also schedule to run the program ignoring maintenance windows and allowing system restart outside maintenance windows.

Distribution Points:

On Distribution Point tab, we specify how the program will run. Whether the program can run locally after the download or run directly from distribution point in fast and slow boundaries.

We can also specify whether the clients can fall back to unprotected DP’s when the content is unavailable.

Interaction

Here, we can specify how the users will interact with the program. Check the required selections and proceed by clicking next.

Click Next, review the security, review the summary and then finally click on close to complete the advertisement process.

Once this software distribution process is complete, we have to check for the status on the above mentioned package, program and advertisement components to ensure that the software distribution is happening as desired.

The detailed troubleshooting, logs and status checking will be published in the coming articles.