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Help Desk Training | PDQ Inventory and Deployments | Part 1
Special thanks to our member for creating this content: John Korduba
PDQ: Inventory and Deployments – Part 1 of 2
Contents
Scenario: Installing FileZilla
Downloading PDQ Deploy and Inventory
Comparison of PDQ Inventory with SpiceWorks
Q&A – Which computers are you deploying to?
Considerations when running a mass deployment
Running Commands on a target machine
Separating the Different kinds of Windows machines
What are Deployments?
“Deployments” typically refer to installation of a software across multiple machines.
Large scale software deployments are routinely performed by IT professionals.
Scenario 1:
You work at a company with 600 computers and you need to upgrade software X on each of them. It’s too much work to handle this by individually logging in (via RDP) to each machine. A large scale deployment – using a specialized tool like PDQ Deploy- would be the method to use here.
Scenario: Installing FileZilla
We need to install FileZilla software to 10 machines on our network. We don’t want to physically go to each machine. How to proceed?
One option:
- We create a share folder on your C: drive –and install FileZilla there.
NOTE: Do not create a share on your desktop. As an admin, you don’t want users accessing your desktop.
- We then remote into each machine and install FileZilla individually.
Another option would be to employ a dedicated Deployment tool.
Downloading PDQ Deploy and Inventory
One well known deployment tool is “PDQ Deploy”. Let’s try it out.
Do an internet search for “PDQ deploy download”
Click the link.
(“PDQ.com/ Downloads” page displays).
Notice that this company offers different services. We will download the Deployment and Inventory tools.
Click PDQ Deploy.
(“Opening Deploy…” prompt displays)
Click Save File.
(Download begins).
Click PDQ Inventory
(“Opening Inventory…”prompt displays)
Click Save File.
(Download begins).
Both files have been downloaded.
PDQ Inventory
PDQ, like SpiceWorks, has different features, including an inventory gathering tool. It also has strong trouble shooting features.
Comparison of PDQ Inventory with SpiceWorks
SpiceWorks is dynamic and continuously scans its target networks. By contrast, PDQ only scans on command.
Installing PDQ Inventory
Double-click the Inventory file.
(UAC screen displays).
Click Yes.
(“PDQ Inventory Setup Wizard” displays)
Click Next.
(“License” agreement displays)
Check “I accept…”
Click Next.
(“Destination folder” screen displays)
Click Next.
(“Ready to install…” screen displays.)
Click Install
(Installation completed).
Click Finish.
(“Initialize…” process begins.)
Click Next.
(“License…” screen displays).
Ensure Use Free Mode is selected.
Click Next.
(“Credentials” screen displays.
Notice that the app automatically captured your domain name and user name)
Enter Password.
Click Finish.
(PDQ Inventory tool is ready).
Running PDQ Inventory
PDQ scans the host computer (“DCDH”)immediately. It does not automatically scan the network.
To scan other machines, click Add Computers.
(menu displays)
Click Active Directory – Browse by Name
(Machines in selected domain display)
With “helpdeskdh” machine selected, click the right arrow button.
(“helpdeskdh” machine is now in the Target pane and ready to be scanned.)
Note that the green check mark indicates that this machine is on.
Click OK.
(After scan, information on “helpdeskdh” displays)
From left hand menu, Click Services.
(“Services” running on “helpdeskdh” machine display)
You could re-start a service on the machine with the PDQ tool, if needed.
Q&A – Which computers are you deploying to?
Scenario: You want to deploy a software update to 300 users. Note that we want to know which machines are on. You also want to separate the 64 bit machines from the 32 bit machines. How to get a list of these machines?
- To determine which machines are on, see “Heartbeat” topic on page 11.
- To show only the 64 bit machines, see “Separating the Different kinds of Windows machines” topic on page 14.
Considerations when running a mass deployment:
- You must be careful not to deploy the inappropriate type of software to the wrong machine. For instance, you don’t want to deploy a 64 bit app to a 32 bit computer.
- You need to test the install in a test environment before deploying it en masse.
- Things to try when testing:
- After a successful install, reboot the system. See if the new software still works
- Try the new software 24 hours after the install to see if things are still ok.
Heartbeat
This determines whether the machine is on or not.
Right click the machine in question.
(menu displays)
Click Heartbeat.
(“Online’ status displays as Yes” indicating the machine is on.)
NOTE: Sometimes you can ping a machine successfully, but the heartbeat says “NO”. This indicates that the machine is frozen.
Right-click the machine (menu displays), click Tools
(Sub menu displays)
- Event Viewer –allows you to see events on the target machine.
- Run Command – allows you to run commands on the target machine.
(More on “Running Commands” next.)
Running Commands on a target machine
Click Run Command
(“run command – Run Mode” screen displays)
Scenario: We have 200 machines that we want to run a group update on. We could list all the machines and then run the “gpupdate /force” command, updating all the machines at once.
Note that the screen below only has one machine listed, but the command could apply to multiple machines, as needed.
You could also run “ipconfig” on the target machine(s). The result would display in the Output pane.
Separating the Different kinds of Windows machines
On the home screen, in the left hand navigation pane, click Workstations.
(Machines with different OS configurations -Windows 10, Windows 7, etc. – display).
In above screen cap, you can also see which Win10 machines are 32 bit and which are 64 bit.
Special thanks to our member for creating this content: John Korduba
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