Software Deployment

I’m interested what techniques people use to combat these problems. I often am requested to deploy software silently via SCCM and am instructed to do so in a way that does not impact the customer in any way and also achieve a high success rate, due to Environmental reasons we also have to assume the customer shuts down the computer overnight. Often these deployments require applications such as office and Internet Explorer to be closed for the installation.

We have gone down the path of trying scripts that request people close the app and scripts that check checks randomly if they are closed. We have set the adverts to start on logon and log off. My next thought is try installing the software at start-up, unfortunately as SCCM does not offer this functionality I will lose visibility of the status of the installations and how many failed etc. Although I am ready to accept this if it means it succeeds I will simply have to track the progress as computers do their inventory.