Deploy Visual Studio Service Pack

arew264 · 02-22-2008, 10:23 AM

I'm helping a server admin that has a lab of quite a few clients. Each one has Visual Studio 2005 installed, and I need to somehow deploy service pack 1 to all the clients.
The service pack is an EXE, and from research, it seems that changing an exe into a MSI could create problems because all the checks in the EXE are removed.

Is there any way to deploy an EXE update across a Windows Server 2003 domain?

**XtabbedoutX** · 02-22-2008, 10:26 AM

This should help you at least give you an idea about software deployment via Group Policy Objects. Click Here

arew264 · 02-25-2008, 10:22 AM

I do understand how to deploy MSI installers via group policies, but this is an EXE update, and it is not safe to convert it to a MSI because of checks that an update should run instead of overwriting files blindly.

I should have specified that I'm pretty sure I need a script based approach here. Is there any way I could set up a script to run this update and get all the clients to run it? Installing the script on the clients is no problem, that could be done with an MSI, but I'm not sure how this sort of thing would be done. Is there a way to get an MSI to install a script and run it? How could I handle errors if the update goes badly on certain systems?
ANY help would be greatly appreciated, I think I know what I need to do, but I'm really quite confused.

02-22-2008, 10:23 AM	#1 (permalink)
arew264 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 2 OS: Windows XP, I help a Windows Server 2003 admin	Deploy Visual Studio Service Pack I'm helping a server admin that has a lab of quite a few clients. Each one has Visual Studio 2005 installed, and I need to somehow deploy service pack 1 to all the clients. The service pack is an EXE, and from research, it seems that changing an exe into a MSI could create problems because all the checks in the EXE are removed. Is there any way to deploy an EXE update across a Windows Server 2003 domain?

02-22-2008, 10:26 AM	#2 (permalink)
XtabbedoutX TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Oklahoma City Posts: 1,189 OS: Server 2K3 R2 SP 2, Server 2K SP4, XP PRO SP 3, Mac OS X 10.5, iPhone My System	Re: Deploy Visual Studio Service Pack This should help you at least give you an idea about software deployment via Group Policy Objects. Click Here

02-25-2008, 10:22 AM	#3 (permalink)
arew264 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 2 OS: Windows XP, I help a Windows Server 2003 admin	Re: Deploy Visual Studio Service Pack I do understand how to deploy MSI installers via group policies, but this is an EXE update, and it is not safe to convert it to a MSI because of checks that an update should run instead of overwriting files blindly. I should have specified that I'm pretty sure I need a script based approach here. Is there any way I could set up a script to run this update and get all the clients to run it? Installing the script on the clients is no problem, that could be done with an MSI, but I'm not sure how this sort of thing would be done. Is there a way to get an MSI to install a script and run it? How could I handle errors if the update goes badly on certain systems? ANY help would be greatly appreciated, I think I know what I need to do, but I'm really quite confused.