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How to Update GPO KACE Agent

Keeping the KACE Agent up to date is important, especially when upgrading or having recently upgraded the K1000. While it’s possible to have KACE handle the K1000 agent and its subsequent upgrades, we’ve chosen to deploy the K1000 Agent via group policy. In this document we’ll look at the steps to update the K1000 Agent in Group Policy for HQ and our Branch Offices.

  1. Make sure you have the latest K1000 Agent downloaded. You can download it HERE.
    1. The latest versions are at the bottom, however you may need to go up a few levels to find the latest folder with a windows platform subfolder, which contains the MSI
  2. Rename of the KACE Agent to include your K1000’s FQDN.
    1. i.e. ampagent-5.x.xxxxx-x86.msi becomes ampagent-5.x.xxxxx-x86_<k1000name.domain>.msi
    2. In 5.4 you need to run a script to change the language of the MSI to English. You can download the script HERE.
    3. Open a command prompt and change it's location where the script and MSI are located and run the following command “cscript setlang.vbs C:\pathtoampagent\ampagent-5.4.1000-x86_<k1000name.domain>.msi 1033”
    4. Other languages are available by changing the four digit number at the end: 1028 zh-TW, 1031 de-DE, 1033 en-US, 1034 es-ES, 1036 fr-FR, 1040 it-IT, 1041 ja-JP, 1046 pt-BR, 2052 zh-CN
  3. Copy the KACE Agent MSI file to a shared location that Group Policy can deploy from.
  4. Open Group Policy Management and find the GPO that the KACE Agent installs under. Right click it and choose Edit.
    1. If your GPO only installs the KACE Agent, Right click the GPO and Choose "User Configuration Settings Disabled" this will skip the User Configuration portion and result in a faster GPO update.
  5. In the group policy object navigate to Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Software Settings -> Software Installation. Then right click and choose New -> Package.
  6. Navigate to the location you placed the KACE Agent in Step 3, Choose Assigned deployment method.
    1. In remote offices it may take a while to show up after you added it, just be patient.
  7. Right click the new setting and click Properties. Set the name to Dell KACE Agent 5.x.xxxx and click apply, and then OK to close.
  8. In the GPO Editor right click the old KACE Agent and choose All Tasks -> Remove. Choose “Allow Users to continue to use the software, but prevent new installations” or "Immediately uninstall the software from users and computers" whichever is preferable in your environment and click OK.
  9. Duplicate Steps 4-8 if you have any additional GPOs that push the agent to other groups.
  10. Duplicate Steps 3-8 for other office GPOs if needed.

See Also:  Installing KACE Agent via GPO, How to Download Agent Executables

Posted 11 years ago 22907 views

Comments

  • Great blog post. You might add that in 5.4 you need to run a VB script to set the language, otherwise it will install in Chinese. See "Modify MSI so it can run via GPO": http://www.kace.com/support/resources/kb/article/installing-the-kace-k1000-agent-through-windows-group-policy - jknox 11 years ago
    • Thanks for the catch! I've made changes to the article. - samzeeco 11 years ago
  • Thank you for the great article! - GeekSoldier 11 years ago
  • it is a _GREAT_ article (linked it in my favorites) but I found out most of the customers prefer to use the autorollout. For initial rollout GPO is always a good idea. What I found _REALLY_ good (as many people miss this) you make shure that you don't run into version problems, which are very bad, if you may ask. I had a customer which needed to uninstall all agents on more than 5000 systems after he messed it up like that.
    Please remember also, that not all OS are supported anymore on 5.4. You should keep that in mind, if you have mixed environments. - Nico_K 11 years ago
  • Would Step 8 suit "some" (not all) better if it were changed to "Immediately uninstall..."?

    We're part of a larger infrastructure with NTLM requirements that prevent us from using Kace's "Provisioned Configurations". Very sad.
    We deploy new agents and agent updates via GPO's and as part of the initial build of new machines, but Kace will auto update most clients that already have an agent. Some existing agents get updated via Kace and some get the GPO.

    The reason for my question above is that I have seen agents get updated to 5.4.10622 on just about all clients, but many have communication issues with the K1000 until I manually remove and reinstall the agent.

    I've also seen clients get updated to 5.4.10622, but under that client's Software\Install Programs listing, "Dell KACE Agent (5.3.53177)" is listed. To be clear, on that client's Detail page in Kace, under the summary it shows 5.4.10622, but under Installed Software, it shows 5.3.53177. - murbot 11 years ago
    • Actually the sole reason step 8 is like that is because the GPO where I work sometimes doesn't cooperate properly with some of our systems, so to avoid any issues with GPO uninstalling something, we just have it leave what's already on there and install over it.

      It's a personal preference, it works really well in our environment, if doing the uninstall would be preferable in your environment I say go for it. There really wasn't a reason for it beyond that. I'll change that line to advise people to pick whichever works best for their environment. Thanks!

      As for the last part, that's weird, I haven't encountered that. If it's causing connectivity or reporting issues you might put in a question here at IT Ninja to see if anybody else has run into it. With everybody upgrading recently I would imagine somebody else has probably had that issue. - samzeeco 11 years ago
  • Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated. That answers my question. Just wanted to be sure there wasn't a specific technical reason in the logic. I have our GPO configured the same as you, but was considering a change due to so many machines having the current agent, but not working properly until I remove that current agent and reinstall it.
    I've called Kace support a handful of times regarding these and similiar issues since the 5.4 SP1 upgrade and they seem swamped with problems. No lasting resolution to a number of issues.
    I should've stuck with 5.3.
    5.4 has been a nightmare so far. - murbot 11 years ago
    • Brutal, sorry to hear that, other than an issue with a particular Kace agent (5.4.5315) we really haven't had any issues.

      You did run the language fix on the 5.4.10622 agent right? If you don't it's like Chinese instead, I don't know if that would cause any issues, but perhaps it might. Strange that it would install the version, but not work, with a reinstall it would start working. I'm guessing the install you're reinstalling it with is the same one you used in the GPO?

      Our agents often show errors when we check in and watch them, but they always report everything back and bring down any software deployments we send them so we don't really mind, plus is funny when we get a new person on and they start freaking out lol. - samzeeco 11 years ago
  • I don't believe the VB script to address the Chinese language issue was run. Our 5.4 Sp1 upgrade failed. Kace had me deploy a new 5.3 OVF and upgrade version by version until I got to 5.4 SP1. They gave me a few kbin consolidated patches which I ran, but none that seem related to a Chinese language issue. Do you have a link or copy of it to share?

    5 patches total
    1 error'd with a version reference
    1 did not apply
    3 succeeded
    kbox_patch_5.4_hdattachments_K1_12420.kbin - Got message on screen that it does not apply
    kbox_patch_5.4.76847_reporting_labelnames_2013020.kbin - Wrong Version screen message
    kbox_patch_5.4SP1-ConsolidatedBugFix-12577_12331.kbin - Installed
    kbox_patch_5.x_DellUpdatesConsolidated_BugFix_12559.kbin - Installed
    kbox_patch_5.4_HD_KB_Comment_K1_12456.kbin - Installed - murbot 11 years ago
    • Link is here: http://www.kace.com/support/resources/kb/article/~/media/Files/Support/Knowledge-Base/setlang.ashx

      As well, check out steps 2.2-4 it walks you through changing the language on the Kace agent. You can verify if it is done or not by opening the software installation in GPO and opening the properties on the Kace agent. The language should report as English (United States), if it's reporting as Chinese you may want to try running the fix and then seeing if the English version causes the same issues. - samzeeco 11 years ago
  • Cool. Just checked and sure enough it's Chinese. grr....
    Ran the script and fixed my GPO SDP's then recreated the software packages with the new MSI. Thanks for the help and quick responses. - murbot 11 years ago
    • Not a problem! Hopefully this will straighten out any issues you've had and give you a little better experience. Be sure to comment again and let me know if it fixed the issues in a few days! I'd be interested to hear if that was the cause or not! - samzeeco 11 years ago
  • When i went to update the GPO with the new agent, it ended up starting a full removal of the 5.4 agent and would not install 5.5. I was able to just removing the GPO all together, but i have a call back to Kace tomorrow to figure out what happened. I am pretty sure that it is related to when I chose to remove the previous amp agent and insert the new one, something went awry. Hopefully I won't have to do all machines by hand and that I can at least get them connecting to the kbox on their own.

    When others have gone to update their GPO objects, have you chosen to Allow Users to continue to use the software, but prevent new installations†or "Immediately uninstall the software from users and computers"?

    Just curious - dkurz8814 11 years ago
  • Bumping this old topic since 6.0 is out. I would also like to know what do people select. Do people select to remove and install the new one, or just install on top of the old package? - glennvelsol 10 years ago
  • The setlang link doesn't seem to work any more.
    P.S. Is that required for the 5.5 agent? - mburns 10 years ago
  • Is this still needed for 7.1? I have to check four different packages every time it changes. - chris.poston 7 years ago
    • From what I understand, you still need to change the language to English. I do still follow these steps when updating the agent.

      One improvement I've made to this setup, is I set up a DFS Replicated folder for each site, I then place the Kace Agent MSI in it. By doing this and setting the GPO pointer to the DFS location, each site uses the local Kace Agent and I only have to update one GPO instead of one GPO for each site. - samzeeco 7 years ago
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