Our school network consists of 120 XP clients and one Domain Controller running Windows 2000 server.
Active Directory is installed and clients are controlled by GPO's.
How can I push updates out to the clients without having to logg on as an adminstrator localy at the client workstation?
Thanks in advance.
Charles Dalton
Rygaards School
Denmark
Charles,
Without providing too much detail (that I could dig out later, if you're
interested):
1) Write a script to install the updates.
2) Create an auto installer account in the domain.
3) Call the install script from the domain installer account login script.
4) Write a script, for each client in the domain:
a) Setup the domain account for auto logon on that client;
b) Restart the client.
5) Write a second script, for each client in the domain:
a) Check whether the update completed successfully;
b) Reset auto logon on the client if so.
Caveats:
1) Insure that your staff never uses the auto install login account to login
locally for any manual maintenance efforts. You do not want the auto install
account caching any local settings on any computers when used manually, possibly
affecting any later update process.
2) Insure that your business partners leave the computers logged off after
work, or have an understanding that the computers will reboot without polite
saving of data in open applications.
Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.
