User Profile Updates
We have about 2000 desktops (Windows 2000 and XP mixed).
We do not use Roaming profiles, so each user has their own profile.
We have AD available, User GPO's tend to blow up citrix box's quite nicely.
Some users may not have administrative rights to the desktop.
Some workstations may have upwards of 50 user profiles.
I have an upgraded deployment for program X.
Program X stores it's configurations in each users profile individually as Registry Keys and or INI files.
All the desktops currently have and older versions of Program X currently installed.
Therefore all desktops already have a valid, but out of date configurations for program X in most of their profiles.
Part of this upgrade for Program X is that we need to update EACH USERS PROFILE on each desktop one time, but I do not want to keep doing it over and over and over again. One time per user per profile.
How does one accomplish this using the currently available updated technologies? Any ideas where I should look?
I encountered this with our Citrix 7 being upgraded to Citrix 9. I looked at the appdeploy notes for Citrix 9, and my testing showed that the new configurations only came down for newly created profiles, or profiles that did not already have valid configuration settings.
But when you extrapolate this from Citrix to the various other apps out there that edit user profiles, and do not have any customization built in, how do you folks out there handle these?
Here we have our own home brew technology in place that lets us actually do this. But it's non-standard, and it exists only here. I would like to know if there is a better, more standard mouse trap out there.
Kindest Regards,
------ Robb ------
We do not use Roaming profiles, so each user has their own profile.
We have AD available, User GPO's tend to blow up citrix box's quite nicely.
Some users may not have administrative rights to the desktop.
Some workstations may have upwards of 50 user profiles.
I have an upgraded deployment for program X.
Program X stores it's configurations in each users profile individually as Registry Keys and or INI files.
All the desktops currently have and older versions of Program X currently installed.
Therefore all desktops already have a valid, but out of date configurations for program X in most of their profiles.
Part of this upgrade for Program X is that we need to update EACH USERS PROFILE on each desktop one time, but I do not want to keep doing it over and over and over again. One time per user per profile.
How does one accomplish this using the currently available updated technologies? Any ideas where I should look?
I encountered this with our Citrix 7 being upgraded to Citrix 9. I looked at the appdeploy notes for Citrix 9, and my testing showed that the new configurations only came down for newly created profiles, or profiles that did not already have valid configuration settings.
But when you extrapolate this from Citrix to the various other apps out there that edit user profiles, and do not have any customization built in, how do you folks out there handle these?
Here we have our own home brew technology in place that lets us actually do this. But it's non-standard, and it exists only here. I would like to know if there is a better, more standard mouse trap out there.
Kindest Regards,
------ Robb ------
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Answers (3)
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Posted by:
MSIPackager
19 years ago
If you are not going to implement with an MSI (it sounds like you aren't) then maybe have a look at active setup - should be just the ticket...
Let us know if it helps [8|]
Cheers,
Rob.
Let us know if it helps [8|]
Cheers,
Rob.
Posted by:
Robb Thomas
19 years ago
Boy, do I ever like that. Thanks... That is a coowel way to to it! I'm gonna head off and play with it!
I was actually hoping to do it with the MSI approach, if at all possible. But if I can't I can obvously use the Active Setup approach to accomplish the same thing at least. :)
Is there some other way to acomplish the Active Setup approach inside an MSI installer?
But what you're showing here is at least 'workable', thanks.
So I could deploy a package in Elevated mode, and that would give me access to the CURRENT USER profile of the currently logged on user to edit registry settings etc. Then I could use the Active Setup settings to get the other profiles on the system later. That is a workable way to do it. Thanks!
Excuse this next question, in my past, I have not had much need of using elevated mode (I can see this changing very soon). Installing to a system where the current user is not an admin on the desktop, are there very many packages for which installing using elevated mode does not work?
Regards,
----- Robb ----
I was actually hoping to do it with the MSI approach, if at all possible. But if I can't I can obvously use the Active Setup approach to accomplish the same thing at least. :)
Is there some other way to acomplish the Active Setup approach inside an MSI installer?
But what you're showing here is at least 'workable', thanks.
So I could deploy a package in Elevated mode, and that would give me access to the CURRENT USER profile of the currently logged on user to edit registry settings etc. Then I could use the Active Setup settings to get the other profiles on the system later. That is a workable way to do it. Thanks!
Excuse this next question, in my past, I have not had much need of using elevated mode (I can see this changing very soon). Installing to a system where the current user is not an admin on the desktop, are there very many packages for which installing using elevated mode does not work?
Regards,
----- Robb ----
Posted by:
MSIMaker
19 years ago
Robb,
I use another method. I actually place a unique key in HKCU\Software\[CompanyName]\[AppName]\Installed
I make this the keypath for the HKCU key and this ensures that the msi will self repair and insert the keys required.
If you need to remove keys as part of the install then you can use both methods at once. use Active Setup to remove the old keys and the msi to create the new keys. This ensures that each new user to that workstation will get the right registry config.
I use another method. I actually place a unique key in HKCU\Software\[CompanyName]\[AppName]\Installed
I make this the keypath for the HKCU key and this ensures that the msi will self repair and insert the keys required.
If you need to remove keys as part of the install then you can use both methods at once. use Active Setup to remove the old keys and the msi to create the new keys. This ensures that each new user to that workstation will get the right registry config.
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