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Reusing a package for updgraded version of an application

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Gilles Delcourt

Hello,

 

I have to deploy new versions of an application. I created a package in PDQ Deploy and it works fine with tne .EXE installer.

 

When a new version of this application is available, I 'd like to reuse my package by just changing the installer to the new one but it fails as PDQ consider targets already done.

 

Is there a way to reset the deployed list for a package ?

 

If I target a dynamic collection based on the latest application version, after I upgrade the version number filtering this collection, will it proceed on installing the new version on computer that received the previous one ?

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Comments

5 comments
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  • Avatar
    lnichols

    Gilles,

    I would strongly advise against doing this, even though it may be technically possible. PDQ keeps detailed records of which packages are deployed to which computers, and the data integrity of these records would be violated by changing the versions that you are deploying within the same package.

    Is there a particular reason that you don't want to just duplicate the old package and then modify the duplicate for the new version? Is it just about not wanting to re-create the deployment schedules?

    It is pretty trivial to either duplicate the schedule and modify it for the new version or just modify the schedule itself.

    1
  • Avatar
    Gilles Delcourt

    Thank you for your reply.

     

    The main reason for wishing to re-use the same package is ease of use (and this avoiding mistakes).

     

    I have several packages to deploy this application, some are nested packages. If I duplicate a package, I need to edit the nested package to reselect the new one.

     

    Experience have proved that when I'm on holydays my collegue forget some parts of the updating process so I'm interested in getting the proccess as simple as it can be.

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  • Avatar
    lnichols
    (Edited )

    Gilles,

    I can definitely sympathize with the plight of colleagues not always following the proper procedures.

    If you really need to do this, I can think of two ways:

    1. Update your old package with the new application version and then modify your deployment schedule to remove the setting for "Stop deploying to targets once they succeed". The implications of this are that you will not be able to trust PDQ Deploy's records to know if the package has succeeded or not. You will have to target your deployment schedule at a dynamic collection in PDQ Inventory that checks if the new version is in place. It sounds like you are already prepared to do this based on the last paragraph of your original post.
    2. I am not sure if this would work or not, but you could go into the "All Deployments" section of PDQ Deploy and right-click on individual deployment records and click delete. I assume this will accomplish what you want in terms of resetting the deployed list for the package, but I could be mistaken. This is a rather unique problem and I've never needed to delete deployment history before.
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  • Avatar
    Gilles Delcourt

    Hello,

     

    Option 1 looked promizing. I made a package and schedule based upon this method and it seems to do the job.

    PDQ Deploy still states wether the deploy was succesfull for each computer and due to the fact that upgraded computer leave the colection in PDQ Inventory, the next run of the package only targets computers not upgraded yet. So even in PDQ Deploy (besides PDQ Inventory) I can have a good idea of how succesfull the upgrade is.

    Thank you for your valuable input.

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  • Avatar
    lnichols

    No problem Gilles, I'm glad that solution worked for you.

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