Run another program first?

[wilbywilson]

I used to select the "Run Another Program First" option frequently in SCCM 2007. Now we're using SCCM 2012 and Applications (not packages), and I can't find this option any longer.

 

The scenario is that we are planning a rollout of Office 2013. Due to some existing Office configurations already out there, I can't just "upgrade" it with the new package. I first have to uninstall the Office 2010 suite, using a separate SCCM application. But I can't figure out how to call that Office 2010 uninstallation from within my Office 2013 application. I don't see anything like "Run another program first" in the SCCM 2012 Application settings. Am I missing something?

 

Thanks for any advice.

[Peter33]

Check out the dependencies tab in the deployment type.

[wilbywilson]

Peter,

 

Thanks for the reply. I do see that "Dependencies" tab, but I'm not sure that will work in this instance, because I'm not trying to check for the presence of another application. I'm trying to call an uninstall program from another package.

 

Are you suggesting that the "Dependencies" tab will be able to handle an application uninstall? Maybe I'm just not thinking about things correctly...

[Peter33]

Dependencies can only handle the install command of an deployment type. If you want to use the uninstall command you have to use the Supersedence of the application. You have to be careful though. There is also a bug while using supersedence for an application which is used in any optional task sequnce. The superceding application will be deployed to every machine which is targeted by the task sequence.

[wilbywilson]

Peter,

 

Can you expand on that last part (bug while using supersedence for an application which is used in any optional task sequence?) I am using 1 optional task sequence, where I'm deploying Windows 7 to "All Unknown Computers", and I've integrated MDT 2013 with the UDI wizard, and it has optional applications in that task sequence.

 

Thanks for your advice. It almost sounds like I'd be better off creating a regular "package" for this, as opposed to an "application."

[Peter33]

I doubt that this bug extends to UDI applications, because it would make no sense. The task sequnce itself holds no Information about these applications, because they get injected by a variable, which gets filled by a 3rd party product (MDT). The UDI applications are only listed in the XML configuration file in your OSD Settings package. No chance that the client can read them.

So it should be safe if you don't use the install apllication step with the list of applications option.

 

 

If you check your client logs (ciagent, ciadownload .. etc) you will see that every single policy for every step of the optional task sequence will be compiled. If a superseeded application is part of this task sequnce it will trigger some sort of backdoor Installation, even if the superseeding application itself is not deployed to the client. Pretty annoying. This caught me off guard 2 times before i figured out what's going on.

[Iroqouiz]

In the OCT (office customization tool) you can specify that Office 2013 will automatically uninstall previous versions

[wilbywilson]

Hi Iroqouiz,

 

While you can specify in the OCT that previous versions of Office should get uninstalled, it is *NOT* a clean upgrade. In Office 2010, there is a piece called "SharePoint Workspace". In Office 2013, there is no equivalent SharePoint software. Therefore, Microsoft has designed the OCT to not uninstall SharePoint Workspace (I guess in case someone still needs that piece.) So, after the upgrade, you'll have Office 2013, and Office 2010 SharePoint Workspace and associated Office 2010 Tools.

 

Also, if you've already got Lync 2010 in your environment, that was not included in the Office 2010 suite. However, with Office 2013, Microsoft decided to include Lync 2013. So, we need to find a way to remove Lync 2010, and my only thought is that it needs to be uninstalled before the upgrade, because the OCT will not automatically upgrade/uninstall Lync 2010.

 

So, due to the changes between Office 2010 and Office 2013, the OCT does not take care of some of these pieces, and we're having to jump through hoops to get a "clean" upgrade.