Troubleshooting Software Deployment

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

The new Group Policy management snap-in (GPMC) provides tools for preventing and resolving Group Policy–based software installation issues. Also, Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003, Standard Edition includes command-line RSoP tools that you can use to prevent and troubleshoot problems that might occur when you deploy Group Policy–based software (process indicated in Figure 8.10). GPMC and RSoP help you to do the following:

• Assess how Group Policy affects software deployment, updates, and removal.

• Identify and diagnose Group Policy setting failures.

• Prevent conflicts among applications that share components.

• Protect computers from unknown or infected code.

• GPMC also provides printable HTML reports for modeling your Group Policy design before deployment, and for logging its results after deployment.

Figure 8.10   Using GPMC to Troubleshoot Your Application Deployment

To prevent problems, use the Group Policy Modeling feature of GPMC to determine how software deployment, update, and removal configurations affect a target group of users and computers before you deploy, update, or remove software. To troubleshoot post-deployment problems, use the Group Policy Results feature of GPMC to see what Group Policy settings are actually in effect for a user or computer.

For more information about using GPMC to prevent and resolve Group Policy deployment issues, see "Designing a Group Policy Infrastructure" in this book. For complete step-by-step information about using GPMC, see GPMC online Help.