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Download and install latest Office 365 via Office Deployment Tool (ODT)

Inspired by Trond Eric Haavarstein’s evergreen PowerShell setup scripts, I created a download and install script for Office 365 Deployment Tool (ODT).

Microsoft Office 365 is the new standard in the EUC space right now. To honor this, we need a fast and reliable way to install it with our favorite deployment tools like MDT or PDQ,  for example when you rebuild your master images.

There are a few different ways to deploy Office 365, but they are all similar:

  • You need the Office 365 Click-to-run setup.exe (Office Deployment Tool (ODT))
  • You need a XML configuration file
  • You decide to deploy from a pre-build offline cache or the files are downloaded from Microsoft each and every time

And then you go: setup.exe /configure configuration.xml

Pretty straight forward you think, but non the less I had problems with this approach. And this is due to the fact, that the Office Deployment Tool itself gets updated pretty often. And this breaks your unattended deployments sooner or later, as the setup.exe stops working. Continue reading “Download and install latest Office 365 via Office Deployment Tool (ODT)”

WSUS Automated Maintenance

Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) aren’t always fun to manage.
Console stops responding? Large WSUS folder? Decline superseded updates? Hundreds of Language packs? Windows XP updates? There is a solution!

In many companies, either small, medium or large Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) is a must. WSUS is necessary if you plan to cache and control the distribution of Windows and Office updates in your local network. But WSUS has its issues out-of-the-box. Let’s take a look at WSUS Automated Maintenance by Adam Marshall! Continue reading “WSUS Automated Maintenance”

Release of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 1903 (formerly XenApp)

Yesterday Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 1903 (formerly XenApp) was released.

Download: https://www.citrix.com/downloads/citrix-virtual-apps-and-desktops/product-software/citrix-virtual-apps-and-desktops-1903.html
What’s new: https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops/whats-new.html

Examples of new features:

  • Citrix Director – Citrix Profile Management Duration in Profile Load
  • MCS storage optimization
  • Framehawk is now unsupported
  • DPI matching on Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019
  • Copy and paste between sessions and clients

Update Citrix Workspace Environment Management (WEM) from 4.x to 1811 (v1811.0.1.1)

An update guide for Citrix Workspace Environment Management (WEM) to the latest version 1811.

On January 3rd 2019 Citrix released version 1811 of Workspace Environment Management (WEM). This is an update guide.
Customer Success Services / Software Maintenance eligibility date: Nov 14, 2018

Download Citrix WEM 1811 (v1811.0.1.1) here:
https://www.citrix.de/downloads/citrix-virtual-apps-and-desktops/components/workspace-environment-management-1811.html

What’s new:
https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/workspace-environment-management/current-release/whats-new.html

Fixed issues:
https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/workspace-environment-management/current-release/fixed-issues.html

WEM setup files
WEM setup files

Continue reading “Update Citrix Workspace Environment Management (WEM) from 4.x to 1811 (v1811.0.1.1)”

Zabbix Linux vfs User parameter Templates

Zabbix monitoring offers several virtual file system item types out of the box. But there are still some missing. I created a GitHup Repository to provide some additional items as User parameter.

During my daily work I was tasked with two additional values, Zabbix should provide to our Administrators:

  • Were Linux configuration files from a certain installed daemon modified? (/etc/postfix/)
  • What is the timestamp of the oldest file in a certain directory? (EDI)

In both cases, the affected machines are Debian Linux virtual machines with Zabbix agent 3.4+ installed and configured. Zabbix offers no way to solve these challenges out of the box, but is easily customizable via User Parameter and custom Low Level Discovery to add this features. Continue reading “Zabbix Linux vfs User parameter Templates”

Download and install latest Tablacus Explorer

In all of my current EUC deployments, I install Tablacus Explorer as an alternative to explorer.exe for use as a published application. This is an evergreen PowerShell script, that downloads and installs the latest version.

In one of my past articles I presented Tablacus Explorer as an replacement for explorer.exe in Citrix Virtual Apps und Desktops (formerly XenApp) as a published application. With automation more and more being mandatory in IT projects, I needed a way to install Tablacus Explorer evergreen with PowerShell each and every time I deploy it to Windows Clients, RDSH, Citrix virtual apps or desktops or in MDT Task sequences. Once again I used one of Trond Eric Haavarstein example scripts and altered it to fit my needs. Here are the results. Continue reading “Download and install latest Tablacus Explorer”