Hi. We are connecting our users to a domain, so there are some convinient ways for installing apps. As pushing MSI installs to all. But i was thinking, maybe there is more convinient way to do this. have tried to search the forums, but i cant think of appropriate keywords.
Is it possible to put Spark (copy all Program Files\Spark\ content) on the server so every user would be starting it from server (profile will be written in local computers still). My boss (IT admin) is saying that this is possible if app dont need to install something/write to a registry (e.g. all apps which work out of box, zipped versions). Has anybody tried this with Spark? I can test it myself, but maybe it’'s not worth to try. And what load on server will this generate? Any other restrictions?
I am very into AD/Domain setups… have been for many years… I run a large school district with well over 1000 machines… many many users, ect… There are many many ways to deploy clients, software, etc… even those that aren’‘t msi files… I currently deploy 67 individual pieces of software to just my elementary buildings alone, and have software checks built in, so if something accidently get uninstalled, upon next login, it gets put back automatically, etc… and much much more…AND you CAN make ANY app portable with the right knowledge… 24 of the programs I use always insisted on cd’'s being installed for each user,not any more, blah blah, and other such monsters… but it can all be worked out… you can push out reg files with your login scripts, backup profiles and reg files with logoff scripts, roaming profiles, or just standard folder redirection… My clients can log into any system in the district and have their documents, desktop, and programs right there for them everytime… we should maybe meet in chat sometime, might be easier to go over any questions you might have for me… be glad to help!!
Just for statistics purposes only… I have had ONLY 34 help desk requests THE ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR so far… using the helpdesk I wrote of course!!
Thanks for your reply. Maybe i’‘ll need more advices when all our users will be connected to AD and Saprk will be ready for deployment. So, are you using Spark? Are you pushing install to all? MSI or EXE? Spark MSI installs have some issues, so i prefer Spark exe. I was askingabout “zipped” version, because i’‘ve asked our administrator whether it’'s possible to put Spark in AD. And he said ok, if that app doesnt need to write anything to regs or install. Maybe he wants to avoid that.
thanks. i’‘ve tried it with 3 users and it works fine so far, well it just starts a bit longer. But i’'m still wondering how it would be with 170 users starting from the share.
You would be way better off just pushing out the spark folder from the server via a login script assigned to each user… a 1 time deal, then it offloads the load from the server to clients… you WILL surely see a performance hit trying to have 170 clients sharing that file from the server over the network… trust me on this…
I manager over 1000 systems in my district, and everything runs great!!