Re: Samba Domain: Install applications on XP clients

[William Underwood <wllmundrwd@charter.net>]

---- "asouza@siu.edu" <asouza@siu.edu> wrote: 
> Hello, 
> 
> Something has been baffling me for quite some time. Is there a
> way to install windows applications on my XP client machines via
> a logon script or some other way? We run a Samba 3 Domain (no
> other windows server box), and I cannot figure out a way to
> install an application that usually requires interaction (next,
> next, etc). I have about 200 XP machines that I'd prefer to not
> have to go around installing at each machine.

That depends largely upon whether the application has a "silent" install option.  You'll want to investigate this first.  Second, you'll have to write a batch file that will perform some kind of check (file presence, reg keys set, etc) to see if the application has already been installed, and that would then kick off the silent install if the check fails.

In case the application does not have a silent install, you can take a system, run a utility like sysdiff.exe to get a snapshot, install the application and run sysdiff again to get the differences.  You would then use the difference file to apply changes to the other systems.  This is usually used only in an OEM installers environment, but it has other uses too.

The third method (one I use for installing Oracle clients on all of my systems at work) is similar to the second method, but you do all the differences by hand.  In the case of the Oracle clients, I have a set of directories I copy to the client system, then a set of reg files I load.  I should just create a batch file for this, but I only have 20 systems.  Too many to want to do manual installs of three different Oracle clients, but not enough to totally script the install....

> I'd prefer the solution to be linux-based, but running it on a XP
> machine would be okay. We do not have any Winwdows Server machine
> for RIS/Group Policy/etc. 

You will need a spare XP workstation to do this, but that would be it...

> Thanks in advance, 
> Aaron 

HTH,
William

--
William Underwood
wllmundrwd@charter.net

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