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Deploy software to your network with group policies

Follow this simple guide for deploying software onto your network using group policies.

1. Open Active Directory User and Computers
2. Right click on the Organisational Unit (OU) that contains the computers that you want to deploy software to and choose properties from the list
3. Click the Group Policy tab and click Open.

Note: If you have not installed the Group Policy Management Snap-In, you will not see "Open". You can download the Group policy management snap-in for WIndows Server 2003 here:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0a6d4c24-8cbd-4b35-9272-dd3cbfc81887&DisplayLang=en

Create the Software Deployment Group Policy Object

1. If you already have a Group Policy object (GPO) for deploying software skip to the next section.
2. Right click on the OU and choose Create and Link a GPO here...
3. Give the GPO a name, something like Managed Software and click OK. Your new GPO will appear on the list of GPOs on the right

Adding Software to your GPO

1. Right click on the GPO you wish to add the software to and choose edit from the list
2. On the Group Policy Object Editor window that appears, click the plus sign next to the Software Settings item at the top of the list.
3. Click the Software installation item that appears under the Software Settings.
4. Right click in the white space in the right pane of the window, choose New -> package from the menu that appears.
5. Use the Open file dialog box to browse for the .msi file of the package that you wish to deploy.

I recommend having the .msi packages on a DFS share point, and use the DFS namespace to browse to the file eg. \\domain\packaged software namespace\packagename\msifile.msi

Troubleshooting

Software install does not start

There is a known issue with Windows XP machines running service pack 3 that have gigabit ethernet cards - the MS knowledgebase article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/239924/

The short version:

1. Start the  Registry Editor - Click Start -> Run. Type "regedit" and click OK.
   
2. Navigate to the registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
3. Right click on the key and create a new DWORD:
   Name: DisableDHCPMediaSense
   Data type: REG_DWORD
   Value: 1
4. Restart the computer.

There is no software installation data object in Active Directory

This can be due to too restrictive settings on the share or NTFS permissions of the share that contains the msi files. Make sure that "Domain Computers" have atleast read access to the share, folders and files.

No package in the software installation data in the Active Directory meets this criteria

This can be due to a corrupt GPO file (or AD itself) - try creating a new GPO and add the software deployment settings to it.