Does anyone know of any software that allows me to push updates and installations out to a whole group of remote machines at the same time? I know there is a bunch of stuff that will allow remote access but I was really looking for something where I didn’t need to sit on each machine at a time. Some of these machines are very remote and there is no AD or server at all.

I know that LogMeIn will do it for a price and I may end up there but I’m interested if folks know of anything else

tx

(watches thread disappear off page… 🙂 )

I’d love to help but it’s 20 years since I was doing that stuff (400+ offices with 2-16 PCs each). We had a tool called Netview for that. For smaller, single office solutions I installed and used NetFinity. I’m guessing these aren’t even available now.

What is it you need to install? Are they Windows machines and can you connect to them remotely?

I’d love to help but it’s 20 years since I was doing that stuff (400+ offices with 2-16 PCs each)

..and this is also why you now get to spend your days wandering around the highlands on your bike making me very jealous. Thanks anyway though

What is it you need to install?

Could be anything that I can package up really. Sometimes I might want to install, sometimes run commands to do something on all of the machines.

Are they Windows machines and can you connect to them remotely?

They are all windows and it is technically possibly to connect to the remotely but I want to avoid doing that on a per machine basis. Some of them are across very poor satellite connections so it all becomes painfully slow as well as taking too much of my time

Ok. It you can package them up and run them from the command line, you can use PSExec: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx

Couple it with a Powershell script and you can automate the whole lot.

RES Automation Manager could work – not sure how it is on slow links though. We only use it in our Data Centres.
You’ll need a SQL DB and at least 1 server/dispatcher.

Sounds like a good candidate for something like Windows Intune, especially if you’re using SCCM elsewhere.

They charge per PC per month, although it seems to be getting rolled into a lot of licence agreements these days (or can be very cheap to add) so worth speaking to whoever manages your licencing.

I new this would be a good place to ask :). PSExec I haven’t used for a while and might be possible. RES Automation Manager looks like it could be hard work though and any site with missing pricing always looks scary. InTune looks like it might be good though, especially if coupled with a remote control package.

All suggestions welcome but I’ve got some good stuff to look at now

How many machines? If it’s lot System Centre Configuration Manager, if it’s just a few then you can use Group Policy to install software packages. If it’s just windows updates that you want to install you can use WSUS which is a free tool from Microsoft

Some of these machines are very remote and there is no AD or server at all.

That’s your problem, right there. Get them all on a Domain, centralised remote administration is precisely what it’s for. You’re trying to managed machines that are unmanaged by nature. What do you do for security? Backups? Anti-virus?

What Couger said. GPO FTW!

MS SCCM or IBM Tivoli Configuration Manager.

Neither are cheap I imagine… used to administer both in a past life.

Tivoli was the successor to Netview/Netfinity which makese even older-school than you!

For the machines that can have direct access to an active directory and GPO then that’s exactly what I do. However there is another bunch of machines (around 50) that will never have direct access to a server as the locations are too remote and there are too few per office to make installing a local server possible. The OS is usually the ‘home’ version as that is what is available locally so I would need to upgrade the OS as well.

But it is worth thinking about though so I’ll see if it would be possible to connect in to one of the servers remotely.

Tx again

What happens if you lose connection halfway through and can’t reconnect?? Sounds scarcy…

What happens if you lose connection halfway through and can’t reconnect?? Sounds scarcy.

It happens all the time which is another reason for wanting to be able to just set a process that would download the files needed in background and run rather than me having to do it by hand.

Got a few good looking options now
tx all

If your not going to pay for logmein, your hardly going to pay for sccm or intune. sccm over poor links without a local server isn’t too good, and home edition puts you firmly in the non-enterprise arena.

i’d keep looking at logmein, that can do windows updates and can also run scripts. shame they’ve just cut the free edition.

psexec is a firewall/security disaster if not on private links.

If your not going to pay for logmein

but I didn’t say that

I know that LogMeIn will do it for a price and I may end up there

I like logmein a lot and am happy to pay for it. Just before shelling out though I thought it would be worth seeing what else was out there as we aren’t loaded but happy to spend money where it’s worth it. I agree that logmein is looking like the simplest and cheapest option to get up and running at the moment although intune does look good as well.

tx. the comments are very much appreciated

sorry, i mis-read.

intune is good, you get enterprise edition of windows, so would deal with your pesky home editions easily enough, and you can deploy software from the cloud, yadda yadda.

not sure i’d bother with micrsoft’s AV though, the days of either the free or paid for ones being any good seem over judging by recent tests.