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MDT 2012 UDI Video Series - Application Discovery - Wouldn't it be nice if your apps were discovered for reinstall?

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User-driven Installation (UDI):  Automatically Re-install Applications with Application Discovery

Wouldn't it be nice if at the end of an OS Deployment a user could login and their needed applications where already installed and ready for users to use and be productive? This is exactly what the application discovery feature In UDI does. Many of you may be wondering what you need to know in order to configure packages and applications for installation during an OS deployment using UDI. To make it as easy as possible for the ITPro and seamless for the end user there are a number of features that UDI includes for software deployment. For the ITPro it is as easy as setting up their applications along with the appropriate mappings and allowing their users to walk through the UDI wizard as part of an OS Deployment in order to have applications automatically selected for reinstalled during the deployment process. 

Application Discovery will execute on your old computer (in Replace Scenario) or your current OS (Refresh scenario) to detect the applications installed based on either a ConfigMgr or PID based mapping(s) that the ITPro setup. Provided the software in which the mappings are configured for is configured as either a package or application in Configuration Manager it will be reinstalled during the deployment process. 

To help you learn more about Application Discovery and provide a general overview of package and application configuration with UDI, we’ve outlined in a video how to set up software with application discovery to detect and re-install package and applications using MDT 2012 UDI.

Leveraging Application Discovery with MDT 2012 User-Driven Installation 

New in MDT 2012 Update1: The UDI Designer automatically configures Configuration Manager and PID (if an MSI based DT) mappings for app model applications which are added to the software page. Do keep in mind if you would like multiple versions of an application to be detected for reinstall then you will have to add these additional versions. The Designer will only add mappings for the versions of the software which was added to the application page.