Running the Upgrade Advertisement

  • Article

Published : September 1, 2004

In the following procedures, you ensure that the advertised program for the Microsoft Windows XP SP2 upgrade runs on the Advanced Client computer. By doing so, you verify that the processes that you have already completed on the site server have been successful. You also verify that your client computer has been upgraded to Windows XP SP2.

In a production environment, you would not normally need to visit individual client computers to initiate discovery data collection, hardware inventory, or software inventory because functions of the following procedure are normally scheduled to occur on a recurring basis.

For SMS 2.0, you can use the Advertised Program Monitor to view the state of the advertised program. SMS 2.0 clients check for and run the advertised program according to the schedule of the Advertised Programs Client Agent. When a program is scheduled to run on an SMS 2.0 client, the Advertised Program Countdown dialog box appears indicating that a program is scheduled to run.

The following procedure applies to SMS 2003, only.

To manually run the upgrade program from the Advanced Client

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Complete this procedure from a computer running Windows XP Professional and SMS 2003 Advanced Client only.

  1. Log on to the client computer with administrative credentials.

  2. In Control Panel, double-click Systems Management, and then click the Actions tab.

  3. Click Machine Policy Retrieval & Evaluation Cycle, and then click Initiate Action.

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    This process might take several minutes to complete.

  4. Click OK to close the Machine Policy Retrieval & Evaluation Cycle message box.

  5. Click OK to close System Management.

    note.gif  Notes

    • It takes a few minutes for the policy to be evaluated and the Assigned Program About to Run notification to be displayed. Remain at this point until the Assigned Program About to Run notification appears.

    • When the countdown reaches zero, the automated installation of Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2 occurs. Whether you logged on with administrative credentials or not, SMS runs the upgrade with administrative credentials.

    • Depending on the hardware used, the upgrade process might take as long as 60 minutes. You can monitor the Update.exe process in Task Manager to confirm that the upgrade is still in progress. The computer restarts automatically after the upgrade completes.

In the following procedure, you verify that the upgrade to Windows XP SP2 has successfully completed and that the computer subsequently sends updated client data.

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Complete the following procedure from the client computer running Windows XP SP2 after the computer has automatically restarted.

To manually verify that the Windows XP SP2 upgrade was successful at the client

  1. Log on to the client computer with administrative credentials.

  2. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties to view the System Properties dialog box where the service pack version is displayed.

  3. Click OK.

  4. In Control Panel, double-click Systems Management.

  5. For SMS 2003, click the Actions tab.

    -Or-

    For SMS 2.0, click the Components tab to open the Systems Management Properties dialog box.

  6. For SMS 2.0, click Hardware Inventory Agent, and then click Start Component.

  7. For SMS 2.0, click OK to close the System Management Properties dialog box, and then click OK to close Systems Management.

    The remaining steps in the procedure apply to SMS 2003, only.

  8. Click Discovery Data Collection Cycle, and then click Initiate Action, which causes the Advanced Client to generate a new discovery data record (DDR).

  9. In the Discovery Data Collection Cycle message box, click OK.

  10. Click Hardware Inventory Cycle, and then click Initiate Action, which causes the Advanced Client to generate a new hardware inventory report.

  11. In the Hardware Inventory Cycle message box, click OK.

  12. Click Software Inventory Cycle, and then click Initiate Action, which causes the Advanced Client to generate a new software inventory report.

  13. In the Software Inventory Cycle message box, click OK.

  14. Click OK to close Systems Management.