Understanding SMS Clients

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You deploy Microsoft® Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 in your organization for one primary reason - to centrally manage the computers in your organization. To be able to manage those computers, the SMS client software must be installed on them. By doing so, those computers become SMS clients. Ideally, all the computers in your organization are SMS clients, which allows you to use SMS for all your computer change and configuration management.

After you install and configure an SMS 2003 site server and the necessary site systems, you can begin to deploy the computers in your organization as SMS 2003 clients. Computers must be SMS clients before you can distribute software, collect hardware and software inventory, use software metering, or use Remote Tools. This chapter describes the concepts of the SMS client and the client deployment process.

For information about other SMS client related topics, see the following chapters:

  • For information about how sites support roaming and how clients operate within sites, see Chapter 2, "Understanding SMS Sites."

  • For information about which client type to use or how to plan the deployment of SMS clients, see Chapter 10, "Planning Your SMS Deployment and Configuration."

  • For detailed client deployment procedures, see Chapter 17, "Discovering Resources and Deploying Clients."

  • For information about supported platforms and configurations for SMS clients, see the "Getting Started" chapter.

  • For information about upgrading clients to SMS 2003, see Chapter 11, "Planning an Upgrade," and Chapter 14, "Upgrading to SMS 2003."

  • For information about international clients, see Appendix D, "Using SMS in International Organizations," in the Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 Operations Guide.

In This Chapter

  • SMS Clients

  • Client Deployment

  • Client Maintenance

  • User Control of Clients

For More Information

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