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Find PCs where a deployment never succeeded

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Kathleen Firth

We have a client installer that makes file changes, but isn't an actual application that we can scan for. The installer itself gets updated quarterly, so we just update the package.

The easiest way for us to be able to see if target machines failed to get the update would be to run a report looking for the package name, deployment start time not before [date of last round of updates], and then no deployments matching that data were ever successful. It's that last portion that I can't figure out how to tease out in a report; I keep getting results where the deployment ever failed, even if it was later successful. I've tried the Not Any group filter, as below, which returns the same results as running "Deployment Status Does Not Contain Success"

Returns ever failed

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3 comments
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    Mike Pullen

    Here's how I get around this kind of thing:

    For many of our "local" installers, I write a little "flag" file to the machine as a "step 2" after "step 1" successfully installs. I have all of these "flag files" go in a folder on each machine named "c:_tstools".

    enter image description here

    IF NOT EXIST C:\_tstools ( mkdir c:\_tstools)
echo $(DateTime) > c:\_tstools\SDOB-AutoCAD2019.ok

    In Inventory, I have a custom "Files and Directories" scanner that scans c:_tstools. Then, I create collections based on existence of the flag file for each application:

    enter image description here

    Then I add a condition to the installer package to only run if the device isn't a member of the corresponding "flag file" collection: enter image description here

    I haven't needed to yet, but it shouldn't be too difficult to make this flag file contain a version number (at this point I just add the install timedate to the file) and parse that out, but it's just as likely that when, for example, AutoCAD updates, I'd just make a new flag file, collection, and condition for the new version...

    Mike

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  • Avatar
    Mike Pullen

    (A happy side effect of this process is, that I can do dir c:_tstools on any machine to see a quick list of software deployed to that machine...)

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  • Avatar
    Christian Bacher

    Nice work Mike, i do it similar with status files.

    But maybe we can solve this problem a littel bit easier.

    This PC Agent must have a .exe file somewhere on the PC, including informations about "Version", "Date created" and much more. Find this file, create a file scanner, scan this file and you have all you need.

    Here is a example with a nvisionA.exe

    The scan:

    enter image description here

    The result:

    enter image description here

    Now you can create a custom collection based on "Files & Directories" and track the version number or the modified date for your purpos.

    Don't forget to create a daily trigger for this scan, or include the file scan to the default application scan.

    Grettings

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