Enterprise Deployment

This is a note for all others searching for a Azure Data Studio version that can be deployed in Enterprise via Active Directory. I've created a full-fledged per machine and per user MSI setup for the Azure Data Studio-Team (see case 4126) to make Azure Data Studio deployable via Active Directory. If you'd like to push it out to your users desktops - it exists now. No need to wrap suxxx InnoSetup EXE installer into an MSI any longer.

Please do understand this setup as PREVIEW as it should be automatically build by Azure Data Studio project. Until a version exists that can disable automatic updates (optionally) I do not name this FINAL. The installer defaults to per machine installations and should also install per user in roaming app data folder as recommended. Automatic updates should intentionally fail as inno_updater has been dropped.

This is a note for all others searching for a VSCode or VSCodium version that can be deployed in Enterprise via Active Directory. I've created a full-fledged per machine and per user MSI setup for the VSCodium Team (see case 106) to make VSCodium / VSCode deployable via Active Directory. If you'd like to push it out to your users desktops - it's available now. No need to wrap suxxx InnoSetup EXE installer into an MSI any longer. All my hate goes to ignorant VSCode project maintainers like joaomoreno who think they do not need to support MSI (see case 33184). Maybe he has a manager who can force him to implement standard Microsoft setups that simply must exists.

Please do understand this setup as PREVIEW as it should be automatically build by vscodium project. The installer defaults to per machine installations and should also install per user in roaming app data folder as recommended.

Since Oracle has decided to charge enterprise customers with upcomming JDK11 and JRE11 people need to look for alternatives. There is OpenJDK around that can close the gap.

As you may expierienced in past - Oracle has changed the MSI files embedded into their EXE setups in version 8.x a few times and cleaned up their installer a lot. At first thought it was a WTF are they doing there in the middle of 8.x, but on the end it became clear that they cleaned up the 8.x installer only. It was an outgrown mess over the years and full of garbage. However - they broke the ability to deploy it easily. Now after the setup cleanup a lot of knowledge and guessing is required to fix the MSI database and make it installable via AD GPOs. It is clear that they like to sell the customer only enterprise MSI installer that nobody want to pay $ 100K for. With Java 9 they started to hide the MSI file more. The MSI files are no longer extracted to TEMP folder if you run the EXE setup. But it is still an MSI and this goes into C:\Windows\Installer folder. You can still make a snapshot of a virtual machine, install Java and grab the MSI from the Installer folder.

Now with Java 11 and later Oracle plans to release a new major Java version every ~6 months and force all end users to upgrade to the latest version. Java version 8.x is no longer supported after in January 2019 without a payed LTS contract. Long term versions are than only available to enterprise customers. Additionally enterprise users always need to license their servers and client computers running Java. They are no longer allowed to use the end user Java versions. End users are not affected by this change.

A few days ago I found out that the previouly hidden link used to download Skype as MSI setup is broken. The last available version was Skype 7.41.101. The latest 8.x versions (8.28.0.41) seem no longer available as official MSI package. This means enterprise deployment is made impossible as EXE setups cannot deployed via Active Directory GPO deployment. Originally when Skype 8.0 was released it was planed to discontinue the Skype 7 ("Skype Classic") support per 1^th September 2018, but they extended the deadline to 1^th November 2018, until some customer requested features are added back to 8.x. It is not clear if these missing features also include the MSI setup. The learning curve that customers cannot ignored seems not very strong; if we keep the past mobile client fiasco in mind.

Contacted Skype support and they confirmed that MSI setup is not available and they named it no longer supported. They pointed to other solutions like Skype for Business and noted that this team may know where the required MSI is, but they cannot help if it comes to end user Skype.

We need to make sure the meetings can take place. Being surprised in weeks or months by a no longer working Skype client is not really an option. A solution is required as there was news around from a Skype employee named Babs that stated the old Skype Classic 7.x will still work for now, but may break in near future. The current deadline for 7.x is 1th November 2018. You need to install 8.x before this date.

Windows 7 and later has a feature named FastUserSwitching. We all know about it, but ShoreTel do not understand it. The discussion about their setup bug goes back for more than one year now and they still do not listen after 4 case reopens. It is clear that ShoreTel development do not understand how thier own software and Windows works. So I decided to publish this information to help you running ShoreTel Communicator properly in your environment. This affect nearly every version for about 5 years or more, but has been fixed in Mitel MiVoice Connect R1803. If you may ask why FastUserSwitching need to be disabled - the answer is simple. ShoreTel Communicator's SoftPhone feature is not compatible with multiple users on the same computer. This VoIP EyeP driver under the hood does not allow more than one user on a computer.

FastUserSwitching is these neat featue you may like a lot at home. It allows users to login to a computer with several users at the same time without logging the other user out. A typical home users scenario.

Situation:

If you are running Commvault Exchange Mailbox Archiver and Public Folder Archiver you may wonder about Install Outlook Add-In - Administrator that suggest some strange ways to deploy the Outlook Add-in. They require you to run EXE command line tools via Logon scripts in a GPO. A horrible bad idea to deploy software... ! Below is the way how you should deploy it to have full controll about all. Do not follow the documentation of Commvault!

This documentation has been written for Windows x64 and this means Windows 7/8/10. An installation on Windows x86 has not been tested, but can be easily adapted.

First of all there are some pre-requirements for this software to run. These are as follows:

You may hate to configure every ShoreTel Communicator 13.x client - again and again if a new user is logged in very first. If you run Active Directory SSO with ShoreTel there is a way to archive this. ShoreTel itself does not provide any GPO files to make our life easier, but you can add the following registry keys via a Group Policy and if you click Communicator icon on your desktop it just starts up and that's it.

I have setup a GPO with below registry keys with action "Create".

Symtom:

You may try to deploy LibreOffice and all times you select the MSI file provided by LibreOffice in the software policies you get the error message: Add operation failed. Unable to extract deployment information from the package.

Workaround:

After long time searching I found out that the Language field in the MSI contains tooo many language IDs. To workaround the bug you can use Orca or InstEd and alter the Language field to 1033 that is english only. This does not mean your LibreOffice will be installed in english only. It just means that the setup runs in english only. This is no problem at all as you are running this setups silent and nobody see an interface.

Google Adwords Editor 9.7.1 and 9.8.1 and 9.9.0 again has been released with major design flaws, see Developers best practice for Windows user profiles. It saves itself, including Adwords data in Windows folder structures that are getting lost on a user logout. Additional to this, there is no way to redirect the data folder to a Roaming Profile folder like it's possible with Google Chrome.

The fundamental broken Windows basics are:

• Roaming Profiles are not supported
  • As result - all data and the application itself get's lost if you log off from the computer.
  • This happens for the reason that the Application is installed to LocalAppDataFolder, what is a folder that is per definition a folder that is excluded from roaming.
• Application is not installed for All Users
  • This is at least wrong design as Adwords should be used by 98% in Enterprises and not at home. The application need to be deployable per machine to be Enterprise ready.

How to workaround some of the issues?

If you'd like to deploy VMware Player in your Enterprise you need to extract the MSI setup from the standard setup. You need to download the normal VMware-player-4.0.1-528992.exe file from VMware site. Than just launch these installer .exe, wait until the setup shows the "Welcome to the installation wizard for VMware Player", but don't install the Player. While the setup is launched setup creates a folder in C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp\vmware_[random number]. Make a copy of this folder to your distribution share. Cancel the launched setup. Now you have the required MSI file vmware player.msi in the copied folder.

If you try to deploy VMware Player 4.0.0-471780 or 4.0.1-528992 to your Desktops via Active Directory you will expierence some major difficulties. At very first it's not possible to install at all. After some investigation it looks like very many others reported this bug in the VMware Community Forums, but nobody came up with a solution.