Using Systems Management Server to Deploy Windows 2000

Advertising the Packages to Computers

You now have a Windows 2000 package ready to distribute, you have the right computers selected, and you have the computers ready for the upgrade. The next step is to initiate the process. Do this by creating an advertisement as shown in the following procedure.

To create an advertisement for Windows 2000

In the SMS Administrator console, select Advertisements.
From the Action menu, point to New, and then click Advertisement.
From the Package list, select Microsoft Windows 2000 Server English.
From the Program list, select Automated upgrade from NTS 3.51/4.0 (x86).
Click Browse, and then select the collection that you are advertising the program to.
To set the advertisement to run at a specific time, click the Schedule tab. To add assignment schedules, click the New button.

Caution

Assigned advertisements run only once for each client they are advertised to. If the advertisement fails at the client computer, the client does not attempt to automatically run it again. This ensures that computers are not caught in an infinite loop of trying to run an assigned advertisement, failing, restarting, and then trying again. Therefore, in step 6, you might also want to select Allow users to run the program independently of assignments. This allows users to run the program ahead of schedule or to run it afterwards if the program fails the first time. Alternatively, you can create a new advertisement at a later time for the computers that failed to upgrade.

As with the previous phases of Windows 2000 software distribution, start the advertising on a limited scale and expand as it proves successful. This is especially true now, because end users will definitely be affected by the software distribution. You can expand the advertising by creating additional advertisements, each aimed at different collections, or by adjusting the collection that the advertisement is based on so that it includes more and more computers. Separate advertisements might be necessary to advertise different programs to appropriate collections. For example, the Windows 95 upgrade program should be advertised only to the computers in the Windows 95 collection.