Subtitles of the Movie

This is ZENworks Desktop Management 7 and in this video we're going to discuss installing the Desktop Management Agent. In order for Desktop Management products like ZENworks or SMS, or Tivoli, to distribute applications and manage workstations they all have to have an Agent installed. In previous versions of ZENworks, before ZENworks Version 3, the Agent was included as a part of the Novell Client installation. Starting with ZENworks 3.0 Novell moved their Client installation into a separate installable package and made it a distinct standalone installer from the Novell Client. The ZENworks Agent is very straightforward to install. We'll go through all of the installation steps and all of the dialog boxes here over the next few minutes. The ZENworks Agent is on any server that the ZENworks Desktop Management Services are installed on. In this case it is on our main server, so we'll go vtc-zenserver, and we'll look at the sys share. Now looking at the sys share, and there's not as much on this particular sys share as there would be on a production server or on a NetWare server, you'll first notice a directory named ZENworks, however, this ZENworks directory does not contain the agent. It's used for the ZENworks products that are installed on this server. In this case the web server and the jre that the ZEN components require to function properly. We'll look in the public directory and by default all of the network have the rights to read files that are in the public directory and below. Inside the public directory there is a ZENworks directory. We have a ZfdAgent directory. If you have multiple languages installed on the server you will have one directory for every language that's installed. In our case we only installed English so we have an English directory. And here is the MSI file. Since the ZENworks Agent is in a Standard Microsoft Installer format it obviously can be transformed and be distributed through whatever means you want, whether it's a login script, or a batch file, or any other method, by simply creating a transform file. There are several products on the Internet that will create transform files or you can even use the MSI engine to do it. We'll get a little more into transform files when we talk about application distribution elsewhere in the Title. In this case we're going to run ZfDAgent.msi and let's step through each of the screens to install this. We'll hit Next on the first screen. It just tells us what the product is. We will accept the License Agreement. And now we are at the screen where we're asked which components of the Desktop Management Agent we wish to install. If, in your implementation, you only wanted to use Application Management and Workstation Inventory for example then you could drop this down and say this feature will not be available for workstation manager and remote management and workstation imaging. For the purposes of this Title we will obviously install all of the components. I will call out this Mirror Driver under Remote Management. The Mirror Driver allows for Remote Control optimization when you use the Remote Control functions of the ZENworks Management Agent. There are a few cases where I've seen that this Mirror Driver causes problems with other programs that make intensive use of the Display Adapter, for example, CAD programs, or 3D rendering programs. In this case it may be desired to not install the Mirror Driver. If you don't install the Mirror Driver you can still Remote Control the workstations and see what's on the workstation display, it's just it won't be optimized and the Refresh will be a little slower. In our case, we'll leave all of the options selected and we'll choose Next. Next we are prompted for the DNS name, or the IP Address, of the Middle Tier Server. The Middle Tier Server is used if you do not have the Novell Client installed on the workstation. For example, assume that your network is an all-Microsoft network except for ZENworks, which is used for application distribution. In this case you would not have a Novell Client installed and you would have to have a Middle Tier Server to act as a go-between between this client list ZEN workstation, and the ZENworks Infrastructure. It says right here: These settings are not required if policies and applications will be accessed through the Novell Client. We have the Novell Client installed on this workstation so we will not enter a Middle Tier Server in this field. Since we don't have a Middle Tier Server we'll hit Next. You're now prompted whether to start the Application Explorer when Windows starts, or launch the Application Window when Windows starts. The only difference between the two, if you read here in the verbiage that they have here, is that the Application Explorer can not only put shortcuts in a standalone window or on the Desktop, but it can also place Application Objects on the Start Menu or in the Startup Group. In our case we will choose to launch the Application Explorer when Windows starts. We'll hit Next. If you have more than one eDirectory tree in your environment that may have the ZENworks Schema Extensions in it, you can choose this box to say: this workstation is a member of this tree. It's really not used when you have the Novell Client, since the Novell Client is logged into a tree already. But if you are using this in a client list situation where you're using a Middle Tier Server you'll want to specify a ZENworks tree. In this case we only have one tree so we'll just leave this blank. And that's all the customization there is. You hit Install, and after a few short moments the client finishes installing, and you click Finish. Obviously this client requires a reboot because it is pretty intrusive in the system, so we'll choose Yes to reboot this, and this will conclude our discussion on installing the Desktop Management Agent.