Report SCCM2007 - Setting a maximum amount of distributions of an advertisment in Configuration Manager 2007 Posted September 27, 2012 Hi everybody, Since I'm new on this forum I might as well take the time to introduce myself properly. I'm 24 years old, and work as a system administrator for the local government of a small muncipality in the Netherlands. We have recently decided to migrate all Windows XP machines to new Windows 7 machines, and also decided it was time to part with our current means of distributing OS's and software among clients, which basically consisted entirely of installing "one client", sysprepping it for "new" distribution, imaging it with storage applications like Acronis True Image, and deploying said image on every computer that needs to be distributed. The exception to this way of distributing software has always been software that needed license activation, and kept track of on which computer it was in fact installed and activated, and usally had a limited number of computers it could be installed on, at any time. We would install that software by hand. Long story short, we're right in the middle of trading in this way of working for software distribution via SCCM2007, and later on SCCM2012. Most things are going smoothly, but the same applications, with a certain number of licenses purchased, seem to puzzle us. We want to find a way to limit the amount of times a software advertisement (say, Adobe Acrobat Professional X, of wich we own 20 licenses, and thus, may be installed on only 20 computers at any time) within SCCM. We could "just package" the application (although we'd still need to figure out a way to make the installation "find the licence key on its own" so the application can actually install, rather than run into a "please enter your license code" notification and freeze) and manually keep track of "where it's installed and how many licenses are taken", but I was specifically asked to "find a way to make SCCM *refuse* any distributions as soon as the program was distributed to 20 client computers", this being a safeguard to make sure any of our "underlings" don't end up distributing the software beyond those 20 licenses anyway, getting us, as a "government", in trouble for using more licenses than we actually possess. Basically, "we should not be able to, at any time, distribute Adobe Professional X, to more than 20 clients, at ANY time". I'll keep my thinking cap on, but any help is most definitely appreciated!
SCCM2007 - Setting a maximum amount of distributions of an advertisment
in Configuration Manager 2007
Posted
Hi everybody,
Since I'm new on this forum I might as well take the time to introduce myself properly.
I'm 24 years old, and work as a system administrator for the local government of a small muncipality in the Netherlands.
We have recently decided to migrate all Windows XP machines to new Windows 7 machines,
and also decided it was time to part with our current means of distributing OS's and software among clients,
which basically consisted entirely of installing "one client", sysprepping it for "new" distribution, imaging it
with storage applications like Acronis True Image, and deploying said image on every computer
that needs to be distributed.
The exception to this way of distributing software has always been software that needed license activation,
and kept track of on which computer it was in fact installed and activated, and usally had a limited number
of computers it could be installed on, at any time. We would install that software by hand.
Long story short, we're right in the middle of trading in this way of working for software distribution via SCCM2007,
and later on SCCM2012. Most things are going smoothly, but the same applications, with a certain number of licenses
purchased, seem to puzzle us. We want to find a way to limit the amount of times a software advertisement (say, Adobe
Acrobat Professional X, of wich we own 20 licenses, and thus, may be installed on only 20 computers at any time) within
SCCM.
We could "just package" the application (although we'd still need to figure out a way to make the installation
"find the licence key on its own" so the application can actually install, rather than run into a "please enter your
license code" notification and freeze) and manually keep track of "where it's installed and how many licenses are
taken", but I was specifically asked to "find a way to make SCCM *refuse* any distributions as soon as the program
was distributed to 20 client computers", this being a safeguard to make sure any of our "underlings" don't end up
distributing the software beyond those 20 licenses anyway, getting us, as a "government", in trouble for using more licenses than we actually possess.
Basically, "we should not be able to, at any time, distribute Adobe Professional X, to more than 20 clients, at ANY time".
I'll keep my thinking cap on, but any help is most definitely appreciated!