Quick’n’dirty notes on deploying software via group policy

Notes on how to install Adobe Reader, Flash Player and Java on all clients in an Active Directory environment using group policy.

Adobe Reader

get msi + msp from ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/

MUI = multi language

Create AIP from .msi, choose network location accessible from all clients, DFS is nice for this:

> msiexec /a AdbeRdr1010_en_US.msi

Patch the .msi-created AIP to latest version:

> msiexec /a \\czp.local\pub\gpodeploy\software\adobe_reader_10\AdbeRdr1010_en_US.msi /p AdbeRdrUpd1012.msp

AIP = Administrative install point, basically a directory where the installer gets unpackaged. Main dir contains a .msi file used for deployment.

Each .msp patches the original .msi, so won’t be able to update on next patch, will need msi + msp again.

There’s a new msi every time the second digit in version changes

Adobe Flash Player

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html

needs distribution license

to disable auto update create a file named “mms.cfg” that contains one line:

AutoUpdateDisable=1

This is system-wide, regardless of individual user prefs. The file goes in ‘%systemroot%\System32\Macromed\Flash’ for win32 and ‘%systemroot%\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash’ for win64. Can use Computer settings -> Windows Settings to deploy the file.

The 64bit package also contains the 32bit version (rly?). Check what it updates, don’t update 64 with 32.

Java

http://ivan.dretvich.com/2011/06/how-to-package-and-deploy-java-jre-1-6-0_26-via-group-policy/

good stuff there, kinda makes the rest of this post obsolete

UPDATE: The .msi file can be extracted from the offline install executable:

Download the Windows Offline Installation executable (.exe) file.

Launch it, no need to install, just launch.

Whit the installer open, go to %APPDATA%\Sun\Java. The .msi will be there.