Running a custom notification before installing a program with Configuration Manager
One question that is seen again and again in the news forums is “how to configure a custom message prior to running a software package”? In this post you can download a utility developed with help from Jakob G. Svendsen that can be used to customize a message that is shown prior to running the real software package.
The utility – WarnBeforeInstall – is installed on each client. When you want to show a custom message you just call the program with a few parameters. The parameters control the title, the message and the countdown value. When the user clicks OK (or the countdown reaches 0) the program will finish with a success code and the parent software program will then automatically kick off.
The logo in the box can be replaced just place a custom banner.jpg file in the program folder.
Logo:
Size: 300×100
Name: banner.jpg
Download:
JGS – 04/01/2011 – New version out 1.0.3:
http://blog.coretech.dk/home/coretech-auto-install-warning-1-0-3-freeware-update/
Coretech-AutoInstallWarning1.0.3.zip 358.15 kB Downloaded 787 times
How it works
- First you create and deploy the WarnBeforeInstall utility to all clients. You cen deploy the package silently without any user intervention.
- Create a new empty software package – I call it Coretech Warn Before Install messages
- Create a program in the package for each unique message you want to show. I have create a generic program and programs for each major deployment where specific messages are required.
- The command line is AutoInstallWarning.exe ”Dialog title” ”Message to the end user” 300 (counter in seconds)
- Example AutoInstallWarning.exe ”Internal IT Message” ”Internal IT is installing software on your computer. Click OK to begin the installation of Microsoft Office 2007” 300
- Specify the program to Start in: %programfiles%\Coretech\AutoInstallWarning\
- Specify the program to suppress program notification (otherwise the Config Mgr. balloon will be shown prior to running our warning.
- On the Environment tab Specify the program to run whether or not a user i logged on and allow the user to interact with this program
- Configure a custom message to be shown prior to installing a software package for example Microsoft Office 2007
- Open the properties for the Office program used to install Office 2007.
- navigate to the Advanced tab
- Select Run another program first
- Select the Coretech Warn Before Install package
- Select the program for example Warn Before Office 2007
- Select Always run this program first
- Select suppress program notification
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Hello, this is great indeed, but let me ask you something please,
The message “Internal IT is installing software on your computer. Click OK to begin the installation of Microsoft Office 2007″ can it be changed to other languages as well ?
Thank you
Sure, you can customize everything. You can customize the text and the title.
does it work on win 7 32/64 bit?
I’m trying to use this in a task sequence for a complex software install. I have it set as the last step in the task sequence, and I see the AutoInstallWarning.exe running in Task Manager, but it’s apparently in the background, as I don’t see it. I seem to have this problem whenever I try to run stuff from task sequences, they run in the background. Any suggestions on how to get the AutoInstallWarning to run in the foreground when used with a task sequnce?
Dear Kent,
Cd you pls advice how I can display bit more words (texts) to end users by using this utility. It’s awesome but it shows only limited no. of texts.
Hello xpert
After you asked your question i made a quick update for the utility, making the window bigger and option to resize text.
please visit:
http://blog.coretech.dk/home/coretech-auto-install-warning-1-0-3-freeware-update/
Happy new years!
Hi,
having problems running this on x64 clients (path not found).
Hi,
Love the utility, works great and looking forward to using it in the business.
One question my manager has is what is the cost of this utility.
I explained that your site says it is freeware but they want to know for sure.
Is this really freeware?
Thanks again for the tool, will make my users really happy
gordon
@Gordon:
Yes, it is really freeware, use it for any purpose you want, as long as you do not blame us if anything goes wrong
have a nice day.
- Jakob
Great app. Is it possible to disable any timeout so users are forced to acknowledge the message before the task is run?
Dear Kent,
Is it possible to use your utility without configuration manager?
I urgently need to find a good way to send messages to all pcs and your utility has a very nice interface.
Thanks!!!
@Chamma,
Yes you can use the tool outside ConfigMgr.
Dear Kent,
When i try to use AutoinstallWarning i got an error “A failure exit code of 1 was returned. User context: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM Possible cause: Systems Management Server (SMS) determines status for each program it executes. If SMS cannot find or correlate any installation status Management Information Format (MIF) files for the program, it uses the program’s exit code to determine status. An exit code of 1 is considered a failure. Solution: For more information on the exit code, refer to the documentation for the program you are distributing.” Where is mine mistake? Can you help me?
Hi Kent,
is it possible to make the program wait until the user clicks Ok or should we just use a high enough counter to make sure the user will see it at some point?
Hi Kent,
Just trying this out for our Office 2010 deployment, got two quick questions…
- if a user dismisses the window via the Windows close button does SCCM interpret this as program completing successfully and starts the next program (i.e. close = clicking OK?)
- I tried to set a large countdown period (>999 seconds) but the 4th digit seems to sit outside the border of the window, any chance of a fix for this at some point?
Hello Gerrad
i am the developer of the program and i have answer for your questions
1. Yes it does.
2. Yes it will be fixed in next version using format xx:xx:xx
When I deployed the package to our clients every single one sat at “Waiting for content” forever. After some research I discovered that by default request filtering in IIS7 will block .config files from being transferred to clients. I followed the steps here: http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2011/11/09/sccm-waiting-forever-for-content/ and it all started to work pretty much as soon as I saved the file.
Apart from that, great program! Looking forward to using it in our environment.