Software Delivery Solution 6.1 SP1 HF2 for Windows Release Notes

Transcription

1 Software Delivery Solution 6.1 SP1 HF2 for Windows Release Notes February 17, 2006 NOTICE The content in this document represents the current view of Altiris as of the date of publication. Because Altiris responds continually to changing market conditions, this document should not be interpreted as a commitment on the part of Altiris. Altiris cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication Altiris, Inc. All rights reserved. Altiris, the Altiris logo, BootWorks, Inventory Solution, LabExpert, PC Transplant, RapiDeploy, and RapidInstall are registered trademarks of Altiris, Inc. in the United States. Carbon Copy is a registered trademark licensed to Altiris, Inc. in the United States and a trademark of Altiris, Inc. in other countries. Altiris express, Deployment Server, Deployment Solution, My IT Forum, Notification Server, Vision, Web Reports and other product names are trademarks of Altiris, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. For the latest documentation, visit our Web site at RNT: H Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 1 of 12

2 Contents Section 1 Overview... 3 Section 2 Installation and Licensing... 3 Section 3 Changes in 6.1 SP 1 HF 2 Release... 4 Section 4 Changes in 6.1 SP 1 HF 1 Release... 5 Section 5 Changes in 6.1 SP 1 Release... 7 Section 6 New Features in Software Delivery Section 7 Known Issues Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 2 of 12

3 Section 1 Overview 1.1 Document Purpose 1.2 Background 1.3 Documentation This document provides a what s new and fixes applied information for this version release of Software Delivery Solution for Windows. Software Delivery 6.1 SP1 Hot Fix 2 includes those defects addressed in Hot Fix 2 and Hot Fix 1. Altiris Software Delivery Solution provides secure, bandwidth-sensitive distribution of applications and updates throughout your organization. Software Delivery Solution supports LAN, WAN, and remote and mobile clients from a single infrastructure, and offers advanced application management features such as application self-healing, conflict analysis, and other ongoing software management capabilities. Product documentation is available in the Software Delivery Solution for Windows 6.1 SP 1 Help (swdelivery.pdf and swdelivery.chm). To view Altiris product documentation in.pdf format, use Adobe Acrobat Reader (available at: Note: There was a problem with the context-sensitive help in 6.1 SP1. See section 8.1 below. Section 2 Installation and Licensing 2.1 Prerequisites 2.2 Installation Software Delivery for Windows 6.1 SP1 Hot Fix 2 requires the following to be already installed: Notification Server 6.0 SP3 ( ) or higher Software Delivery for Windows 6.1 SP1 Installation and licensing information is provided in the Readme Quick Install.pdf file (included in the solution zip file downloaded from the Altiris Web Site), in the Altiris Getting Started Guide, and in the Altiris Notification Server Help. Software Delivery for Windows 6.1 SP1 Hot fix 2 is not included in the 6.1 SP1 installation. To install Hot fix 2, first install 6.1 SP1, then install the Hot fix from the Altiris product updates site Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 3 of 12

4 Section 3 Changes in 6.1 SP 1 HF 2 Release The following issues have been fixed in this release: 3.1 Fixes in 6.1 SP 1 HF Maximum Number of Software Allowed in a Single Software Portal Request. This setting is useful in limiting the amount of network activity needed to deploy applications. If a user selects more than the number allowed, a popup message will tell them they have exceeded the maximum allowed and the selection will not be allowed Software Portal Folders Hidden if No Software Exists in the Folder The Software Portal now only shows folders if the leaf node folders contain software that the user can either install or request permission to install Show Link for Software Portal The Show link for Software Portal in the Add Remove Programs dialog box is removed from the Software Portal Settings page Computer Collections The Windows computers with no Software Delivery Agent installed and Windows computers with no Task Synchronization Agent installed computer collections were previously showing Unix/Linux and Mac computers Importing Multiple Sequenced Tasks Previously, while importing multiple sequenced tasks, all tasks would have the same dependencies as the first task in the list. Now, all sequenced tasks will have their dependencies the same as they were when the tasks were exported Installing Software Delivery Agent on Windows NT 4 For some instances, the Software Delivery Agent would not install on Windows NT 4 Server computers Deferring a Task After Expiration Date Previously, users were able to select a time to defer a Software Delivery task after the expiration date of the task, thereby not having the task run on the users computer. Users are no longer able to defer a task after the expiration date of the task Software Portal Requests Previously, Software Portal requests displayed multicast as enabled when the Software Delivery Agent had multicast enabled. Software Portal requests are never multicast. Now, Software Portal requests will no longer show multicast as enabled New Package Server Support Software Delivery Solution now supports new Package Server assignment features added to Notification Server 6.0 SP Changing Security on Imported Packages Software Portal now allows for changing security on imported Packages Item Tasks-Software Delivery Wizard New privileges called Item Tasks-Software Delivery Wizards were added in Notification Server SP3. These new privileges have been integrated into the Software Delivery solution, Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 4 of 12

5 which allows administrators to grant or revoke the privilege to use the Software Delivery Wizard-Advanced and Software Delivery Wizard-Simple Enhanced Support for Internet Explorer 5.0 Enhanced support has been provided for the Software Portal with Internet Explorer 5.0 in Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Workstation Automatic Installation of Software Delivery Agent If Software Portal Settings task is enabled for a computer on which Software Delivery Agent is not installed, the Software Delivery Agent is automatically pushed onto the computer Status Message of Sequential Tasks Status messages of Sequential Tasks were not properly sent to the Notification Server. This resulted in increased server load and SQL dead locks Software Portal Request Status The Software Portal request status is available on selecting the Approved Software or Software Requiring Approval nodes The Software Portal configuration page lists Sequential Software Tasks that the user does not have permissions for If a user does not have permissions to view a Sequential Software Task, the task is not viewable in the treeview pane, but is viewable in the Software Portal configuration page Entries related to Sequential tasks and Software Request tasks are not deleted from the database Entries related to Sequential tasks and Software Request tasks are not deleted from the database when purging is done Software Portal Permissions and Upgrades Software Portal Permissions won t be retained if SWD Solution is upgraded after clean uninstallation of previous version If you upgrade SWD Solution by doing a clean un-install of the previous version and installing the new version, then the Software Portal permissions applied to the program items won t be retained in the new version. Section 4 Changes in 6.1 SP 1 HF 1 Release 4.1 New Features in 6.1 SP 1 HF Altiris Software Virtualization Solution Support The Software Portal will support Virtual Software Packages from Altiris Software Virtualization Solution. 4.2 Fixes in 6.1 SP 1 HF Software Portal Applications Status In the Software Portal, the status of applications requested and deployed was not displayed correctly. Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 5 of 12

6 4.2.2 Unable to delete a software package if it had been requested through the Software Portal. Under certain circumstances, you could not delete a software package if it has been requested through the Software Portal Sequential software task security permissions not inherited On a sequential software task, security permissions were not inherited from its parent. The inheritance was turned off by default. The task could not be accessed by any one other than the creator. Inheritance is now turned on by default The Windows Computers with no Software Delivery Solution Agent Installed collection included unmanaged computers The Windows Computers with no Software Delivery Solution Agent Installed collection included unmanaged computers. Now the collection includes only managed computers with the Altiris Agent installed Package Server settings for a Software Delivery Package were not saved When modifying package server settings for a Software Delivery Package, the settings were not saved. This has been corrected Software Portal settings not updated on client computers The SWR Task (Software Portal Settings Task) did not start on client computers causing Software Portal settings to not be updated Software Delivery Package Terminate after option only terminated the parent process When using the Terminate after option for a Software Delivery Package, it would only terminate the parent process, it now terminates the entire process tree Software Delivery Solution licenses counts Software Delivery Solution would count all platform OS types against the number of available licenses, it now only counts Windows-based client computers Patch Management Solution packages deleted before the package could be run The Software Delivery Solution Agent would sometimes delete packages downloaded from Patch Management Solution before the package could be run. Now, if a package downloads again, the delete package interval will restart, allowing the task to run Load times for the Sequential Software Delivery Tasks page and the Software Migration Tasks page have been improved The load times for the Sequential Software Delivery Tasks page and the Software Migration Tasks page have been improved Software Delivery Solution Agent and Task Synchronization Agent now installs on all versions of Windows Installer The installers for Task Synchronization Agent and Software Delivery Solution Agent run and install the respective agents successfully on a Windows 98 computer having Windows Installer version Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 6 of 12

7 Section 5 Changes in 6.1 SP 1 Release 5.1 New Features in 6.1 SP Sequential SWD Tasks are available through the Software Portal The Software Portal now supports Sequential SWD tasks as well as standard SWD programs Filter Control in Software Portal User can filter SWD programs and Sequential SWD tasks displayed in the SW Portal tree using criteria like package name contains, publisher name starts with, created before\after etc Enhanced Software Portal Tree The Software Portal tree has been enhanced to include refresh, search, and collapse/expand options User Preferences for the Software Portal User preferences for addresses for denial/acceptance mails can now be stored New Wizard to process Software Portal Requests In the current implementation of the SW Portal, a separate helpdesk ticket was created for each SW request. The administrator is required to process each request separately. These requests are now queued up and a Wizard is available to the administrator to process these grouped requests Security Management added in Portal Configuration Page Using the Portal Configuration Page, you can now select one or multiple SWD programs to apply security options. You can also select one or more Sequential SWD tasks to apply security settings Additional Software Portal Reports Existing reports now include data for sequential SWD tasks. The following new Software Portal reports have been added: New reports have been added, such as Most Denied Software/Sequential Software Delivery tasks Most Installed Software /Sequential Software Delivery tasks Most Requested Software/Sequential Software Delivery tasks (In descending order of number of requests) Software Request Status - This report will show the current status of Software request (Approved, Rejected, ExecutionSuccess, ExecutionFailed, AwaitingApproval etc.) New Run once for Specific users or groups Option There is a new Software Delivery program option, Run once for Specific users or groups, which can be used to configure a SWD task to run on client only if the program used for task is allowed to run for the current logged on user on that computer. The administrator has the option to specify a SWD program to run either once for each logged on user OR once for specific users or groups. The administrator can launch the user\role selection dialog to select the user or\and user groups. Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 7 of 12

8 On the client computer, the SWD Agent will verify whether or not the current logged on user is allowed to run this program and only then will it queue that advertisement. Note: 5.2 Fixes in 6.1 SP 1 The Run once for Specific users or groups feature requires that each client computer have the Altiris Agent that will be available with Notification Server 6.0 SP3. Notification Server builds later than 5287 is also required to view this option on the Programs page Software Portal load error Load error sometimes occurs when launching the Software Portal on IE 5.0 and WOL error seen in NS log file Schedule error is being written to the NS Log when a WOL SWD Task is enabled Evaluation license shows improper use count Licensing page does not show proper 'In Use' count for a trial license of SWD Solution Software Portal tree load and software request time is slow The loading of the Software Portal tree degrades if the count of the Packages\Programs shown in the tree exceeds a certain amount (approx above 500) Evaluation license does not indicate when the count is exceeded The NS licensing page does not indicate when a license count is exceeded, when an evaluation license is in use Sequential Task runs again on a client Any change made to a Sequential SWD task causes the task to run again on a client UNC package validation fails to use Distribution Point Credentials The SWD Package UNC attribute is validating off of Package Access Credentials instead of Distribution Point Credentials SWD not listed as a currently installed solution SW Delivery 6.1 solution does not show as a "Currently Installed" solution on the Solution Center page in the NS console Task Synchronization Agent install could reboot when completed If the Task Synchronization Agent was locked and could not be replaced, the install would trigger a reboot to replace the file Application inventory tasks may not run. Application inventory tasks are not getting executed, if the Notification Server is a part of a collection assigned to the task Approving a Software Request for an Incident twice throws an error If you click on a Software Approval link in an Incident and approve the software, clicking on it again will give an error "There is no row at position 0" Unable to delete a clone Application Inventory task An Application Inventory task cannot be deleted after it is cloned Unable to delete a cloned Software Portal Settings Task A Software Portal Settings task cannot be deleted after it is cloned. Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 8 of 12

9 Unable to view the status of requested software in the Portal After requesting Software in the Portal you do not see the status of these requests in the right-hand pane until you select the Software node in the tree SWD Agents are rolled out again to all computers when a new run schedule is set Using the collection "All Windows Computers with NS 6 agent" would still allow the agent to install on all clients, even though the agent was already installed on a client 'Not Run' column could display wrong total in the SWD Dashboard The Dashboard could show incorrect data for the Not Run column, if no computer has executed the program displayed Notification Server Console fails to respond after installing Software Delivery Solution After Installing Software Delivery Solution, it makes a request to restart the Notification Server service. If there is a heavy load on the server, the restart could fail Software Portal fails to launch Software Portal may not start when launched from a 2003 server with IE SWD Wizard fails to retain Package Server Selection Package Server selection in the Wizard UI is not retained when moving from one page back to the selection page Software Portal does not add back to its tree SWD programs that have failed A SWD Program displayed in the Software Portal is removed until it has successfully installed. In the case of failed executions, the program is not restored to the tree Sequential Task does not run all programs if it expires A Sequential task may not complete the execution of all programs, if the availability time defined by the task has expired Recovery agent runs in UI mode on client The 6.1 version of the Recovery Solution agent will display its snapshot dialog when run through a SWD Task on a client SWD Run and Reboot dialogs on a client can get hidden SWD Popup notifications are not brought to the foreground when another app is being used SWD Task's Availability option could cause an error when run under a different language Changing the Availability value on a SWD Task will generate an error when the date format of the language selected in Internet Explorer differs from that of the OS under Regional Settings Wizard and Status page takes a long time to load If the SWD Execution table has a large amount of data (e.g. one million rows), the Wizard and Status page could take a long time to load. This could occur if purging of SWD execution events is turned off or not set to purge for a very long time Clone Sequential task fails to run Cloned Sequential tasks do not run on a client if the original task already ran successfully. Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 9 of 12

10 Unable to install SWD Solution to a non-default web site If NS is installed to a non-default web site, the SWD Solution does not get installed under the same root node Clone option on dashboard in not enabled On a SWD Dashboard, if any task has a failure count greater than 0, the toolbar option "Clone this task for computers where it failed" remains disabled Unable to Install the Software Delivery Solution agent on a Windows 9.x platform When attempting to install the Software Delivery Solution agent on a Windows 9.x platform the install would run successfully but fail to add the solution to the Altiris agent Unable to execute the Software Portal on a Windows 9.x platform The start menu to access the Portal would fail to get created on a 9.x platform. Attempting to run the portal on IE 6 would not allow the software tree to load Cloned Software Portal Settings task does not run on clients. If you clone a Software Portal Settings task, it would fail to create the proper task definition to cause the Settings task to run on a client. Section 6 New Features in Software Delivery Multicasting Multicasting lets you transmit packages to a select group of recipients. This feature has been introduced to Notification Server to improve Package Server performance on large networks for large customers using significant amounts of network bandwidth. It will protect Package Servers from being overloaded and help prevent slow network responses when distributing large packages. Multicasting reduces the load on Package Servers by reducing the number of Altiris Agents that connect to the Package Server and decreases network utilization by multicasting package data to peers. 6.2 Sequential Software Delivery Tasks You can create a Software Delivery task to deliver a single application or you can create a sequential Software Delivery task to deliver multiple tasks. When using sequential Software Delivery tasks you can configure the sequence of the tasks to be deployed as well as dependencies that must exist for each task to be run. For example, you can have three tasks, Task A, Task B, and Task C in one sequential task. After setting the execution order, you can configure a dependency for Task C to only execute if Task B executed successfully. 6.3 Software Migration The Software Migration Wizard creates tasks that can identify applications that are installed on one or more source computers and then deliver the corresponding Software Delivery packages to one or more destination computers. You can use the Software Migration Wizard to identify which applications are installed on the original computer and then use Software Delivery to deploy software delivery packages for those applications to the new computer. If you have Altiris PC Transplant, you can use it after the software migration to migrate the settings from the original computer to the new computer and both the applications and settings will be available to the user. Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 10 of 12

11 6.4 Enhanced Data Purging The Software Delivery Data Purging page under the Configuration tab has been enhanced and an option is provided to purge the unused internal collections that were created by and for Software Delivery solution. 6.5 New Run once for each logged on user Option There is a new Software Delivery program option, Run once for each logged on user, that can be used to cause a program to run for each user that logs on. The Software Delivery agent keeps track of each user that has run the program. 6.6 Enhanced Software Delivery Dashboard The Software Delivery dashboard has been modified to use charts, instead of a status grid. 6.7 Advanced SWD Wizard The SWD Wizard now has an Advanced Wizard. The Advanced Wizard gives you the option to configure package server options, event logging options, the package display name in the Altiris Console, and task download and execute options. 6.8 New Security Privileges added Three new security privileges have been added: "Create Software Delivery Tasks", "Create Software Delivery Packages", and "Create Software Portal Definitions". Section 7 Known Issues 7.1 Some context-sensitive help topics not working The documentation that was included with 6.1 SP1 (Software Delivery Solution Documentation ) has a problem that prevents some context-sensitive help topics from loading properly. To fix this problem, uninstall the current Software Delivery Solution documentation and install the updated Software Delivery Solution documentation through the Solution Center. To uninstall the Software Delivery Solution documentation through the Solution Center, open the Altiris Console, then click the Configuration tab and then click Upgrade/Install Additional Solutions. Click the Currently Installed tab. Find Altiris Software Delivery Solution for Windows Documentation with a current version of Click the Remove button. This uninstalls the documentation. To install the updated documentation through the Solution Center, click the Available Solutions tab. Then click Segments > Documentation. Click Altiris Software Delivery Solution for Windows Documentation to install it. (If the documentation does not have an Update Version greater than , then click the Solution Center Settings tab, select the Solution Center location as Altiris web site, then click the Download now button.) 7.2 Software Portal not functioning correctly due to non-registered MSCOMCTL.OCX The Software Portal console throws script errors and does not show the tree in the left pane, if the MSCOMCTL.OCX is not found registered on client system. This error can be solved by manually registering the MSCOMCTL.OCX component by executing following statement on command prompt. regsvr32 %windir%\system32\mscomctl.ocx Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 11 of 12

12 7.3 AppWeaverControls Run-time error '380' when opening a Software Delivery Task If the language of Internet Explorer and the operating system's Regional settings do not match, you could get a run-time error message when trying to open a Software Delivery task. The problem is caused by the date parser in the AppWeaver control. The control is assuming a specific date separator to be used, based on the IE language selected. If the operating system's language and date separator are different, it can cause an error to be displayed. To work around the problem bring up the Regional settings dialog from the Windows Control Panel. Select the 'Customize...' option from the Regional Options page. Select the Date tab, and choose a different delimiter from the 'Date separator' field. Click on 'OK' to close the dialog and apply the Regional Option to activate your changes. To test your selection, from the Altiris Console, refresh the Software Delivery task page. If you still get the error repeat the steps above choosing a different delimiter till the error goes away. 7.4 Upgrading Task Synchronization Agent from 6.0 to 6.1 SP1 When upgrading your Task Synchronization Agent from 6.0 to 6.1 SP1, use the Task Synchronization Agent Upgrade task that comes with Software Delivery Solution version 6.1 SP1. Do not uninstall the 6.0 agent. If the Task Synchronization agent is uninstalled via Add/Remove Programs, or using the Task Synchronization Agent Uninstall task for 6.0, the status of any synchronized tasks executed will be lost. If the agent is reinstalled, synchronized tasks still enabled will run again. Note: If you need to uninstall the Task Synchronization agent, use the Task Synchronization Agent Uninstall task that comes with 6.1 SP1 to avoid this problem. Release Notes Software Delivery Solution 6.1 HF2 for Windows Page 12 of 12