Best way to reinstall software following PC rebuild

[MED1975]

Hello ladies and gentlemen! I have been lurking for a while but now time to join and post....

 

I am currently working on a project migrating from software installs via Active Directory groups to using SCCM 2007. Currently if I need to rebuild a PC using WDS simply joining the PC to the domain and rebooting ensures all the relevant software gets reinstalled. It is my understanding with SCCM this will not happen as the packages are not readvertised.

 

What process do others use to get software back on to a PC in this situation? Secondly how can this process be sped up? I can currently turn around a PC for rebuild within 2 hours, but due to the trickle nature of SMS it could take a week to get all the software back on.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Matt

[anyweb]

hi Matt

 

a simple alternative would be to have a thick image (your base os plus vital apps like office, adobe reader, winzip, whatever...) and let the other less commonly used apps install as normal via SCCM

 

let's see what the others have to say about it

 

cheers

niall

[MED1975]

Thanks Niall for your response...

 

We do already have a relatively thick image, however I work in an environment with over 4500 PCs and some 400 different applications that have no strict pattern so we can't even create multiple thick images for different departments to alleviate this problem.

 

There must be a better way to achieve this solution? Generally I would rebuild a machine in our lab - is there a way to speed up the software distribution to a particular group or IP range in the lab? What determines how quickly a package does trickle out with SCCM?

 

Thanks again for your help!

 

Cheers

 

Matt

[anyweb]

What determines how quickly a package does trickle out with SCCM?

 

well lots of ways but most commonly discovery methods as they are what puts your computer or user in a collection in the first place (unless you add them using direct membership queries or such like), and you are most likely basing your application installs on what collection a user/computer is a member of,

 

so... you could tweak your discovery methods to go more often, and for the collection update to update itself within a time period that corresponds to the discovery methods

 

so lets say you do some AD discoverys every 3 hours, well then you might want some application collections refreshing themselves every 4 hours,

 

I would strongly suggest testing this backwards in a lab, here are some good pointers

 

Deploy software through AD Groups linked to Collections in SCCM, AD Group for deployments

everyone needs software eventually

 

Fully automated Application Groups

One of the best ways of using AD groups for deploying software

 

in addition to the above, the user (and computer if used) policy updates on the CLIENT will need to be tweaked

 

cheers

[Peter van der Woude]

Also a part of the Service Pack 2 for SCCM is: Improved Client Policy Evaluation with Faster policy processing and More efficient software distribution configured to run at user logon.

 

So for existing user and computers it shouldn't be such a process slower as it was before.

[MED1975]

Thanks guys - good advice so far!

 

Matt

[MED1975]

Also a part of the Service Pack 2 for SCCM is: Improved Client Policy Evaluation with Faster policy processing and More efficient software distribution configured to run at user logon.

 

So for existing user and computers it shouldn't be such a process slower as it was before.

 

I dont suppose you can elaborate on the more improved software distribution at user log on? I have been trying to find release notes etc but all I can find is that the SP2 does this - I cant find any more details about it and how it is better.

 

Thanks

 

Matt

[Peter van der Woude]

Take a look here: http://infraops.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/sccm-sp2-r2-it-must-of-have-been-the-turkey/