Upgrade Managed Software

Description

This project allows to update and check managed software installations.

Installation

1. Create a HelperAdmin domain user with admin rights on all workstations.

2. Create two batch scripts:

   • UpgradeManagedSoftware.cmd launching the python script UpgradeManagedSoftware.py
   • UpgradeManagedSoftwareTaskScheduler.cmd to delete/create the UpgradeManagedSoftware task

3. REPEAT THIS STEP WHENEVER THE CMD IS CHANGED! To prevent terminal windows popping up, use the Windows built-in IExpress.exe utility to build a silently running .EXE out of these two batch files (see https://superuser.com/questions/62525/run-a-batch-file-in-a-completely-hidden-way). See the included SED files (they are plain text) for more info. When using IExpress make sure you do the following:

   • select "extract files and run an installation command"
   • type a title for the package
   • select "no prompt"
   • select "do not display a license"
   • add only UpgradeManagedSoftware.cmd to the package
   • fil out "UpgradeManagedSoftware.cmd" as install program to launch (no post-install command)
   • select hidden for "show window"
   • select "no message"
   • as target path and filename, fill out UpgradeManagedSoftware.exe and select "hide extraction progress"
   • select "no restart"
   • save as UpgradeManagedSoftware.SED
   • the package should be created - the resulting UpgradeManagedSoftware.exe will start the python script without terminal running.

4. Create and export a scheduled task to launch UpgradeManagedSoftware.xus - from the exported xml, remove the author ID so a non-privileged account is allowed to import the task using schtasks.

For the tasks below a working WPKG installation can be used; see WPKG-UpgradeManagedSoftware.xml for details.

1. Install RunAsRob as a service

2. Copy all UpgradeManagedSoftware files to a folder in Program Files (to prevent users tinkering with them), eg "C:\Program Files\LET\UpgradeManagedSoftware".

3. Use RunAsRob to create an encrypted shortcut UpgradeManagedSoftware.xus to UpgradeManagedSoftware.EXE, using HelperAdmin's credentials, but check to run using the service account.

4. Copy UpgradeManagedSoftwareTaskScheduler.EXE into the folder C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup to delete/create the scheduled task for any logged-on user.

5. Create a shortcut to UpgradeManagedSoftware.xus and set its icon. Copy the shortcut to all users's start menu.

6. Using WPKG,

7. For automatic installation, you need to have a working wpkg installation using wpkg-gp.

• • No need for wpkg-gp.

Configuration options

All options are configured in UpgradeManagedSoftware.py (start of the file).

Updating

Change the VERSION variable of the package in WPKG-UpgradeManagedSoftware.xml .

Localization

Translations need to be defined at the start of UpgradeManagedSoftware.py:

SUPPORTED_LANGUAGES = ['fr','nl','sk']

To generate the pot file:

C:\Python37\python C:\Python37\Tools\i18n\pygettext.py -d UpgradeManagedSoftware -o locales/UpgradeManagedSoftware.pot UpgradeManagedSoftware.py

We need gettext tools to update po files from pot files. On Windows, install Ubuntu 18.04 via de windows store. Launch bash and install the prerequisites:

sudo apt install python3 gettext

Update po's with pot: (requires gettext utilities)

bash
python3 pot2po.py fr nl sk

Edit the po's using poEdit . You can create a catalog pointing to the 'locales' folder for easy managing the translations. poEdit will compile the po's into mo's.