D
dgordon
I used group policy to install office with a transform on several users's computers. Later I patched the install and redeployed. I was very happy with the results until, one day, users began calling to say that office XP had been removed from their computers. Actually, Access had been left intact but Word, Excel, and Powerpoint had been removed. These users were still in the original organizational unit and the group policy was still in place (the policy allows users to keep the software even when it is no longer in the scope of management, in any case). I was unable to get group policy to reinstall the software with a "redeploy". As near as I could tell the computers seemed to think they still had office installed. Thinking there may have been some corruption in the install files on the network share, I restored these from a backup made during the time when the product was successfully installed. A file/directory compare program found no difference in the backup and original install files. I then deleted the policy and created another policy to install office. After restart (the second restart for XP computers) I would get the "installing managed software message" for anywhere from 2 to 15 minutes (depending on the network connection)--but office remained uninstalled. Finally I had a user go to add/remove programs in the control panel, click, "change", then "add or remove" features. From the resultant screen I saw Word, Excel, and Powerpoint with red x's next to each. We used the dropdown to select "run from my computer" and the programs successfully installed
I rechecked my transform: It specified that the programs above should be "run from my computer"--and they had been until their unfortunate mass removal.
The next two weeks were peaceful. Then, on a Monday, the same thing happened again! My solution at this point is to removed all computers from the scope of policy after a successful install to avoid this craziness. But then I can't take advantage of the file protection and replacement advantages of managed software. Worst of all, I have no clue why this is happening.
I rechecked my transform: It specified that the programs above should be "run from my computer"--and they had been until their unfortunate mass removal.
The next two weeks were peaceful. Then, on a Monday, the same thing happened again! My solution at this point is to removed all computers from the scope of policy after a successful install to avoid this craziness. But then I can't take advantage of the file protection and replacement advantages of managed software. Worst of all, I have no clue why this is happening.