Hello. I just started a new job a month ago that uses Altiris for imaging and software deployment. My previous job I used strictly Group Policy to push software out. With Group Policy, if the computer is in the same OU as the policy or the OU inherits the GPOs above it, it automatically installs the software. From my understanding, Altiris doesn't work like this? You must manually assign the software job every time you that image, it won't grab the appropriate software based on a folder structure?
Similar question with images. Can you assign an image to a computer? So if I need to image an entire building (work at a school), I can just tell them all to image and they automatically grab the appropriate image and software.
To simplify my question.
Computer lab 1 with 5 computers: All computers are assigned Room 100 image with 5 software packages in Altiris.
Computer lab 2 with 5 computers: All computers are assigned Room 200 image with 6 software packages in Altiris.
Anytime I tell a computer in lab 1 to image, it automatically knows to use Room 100 image and install the 5 software packages.
I'm assuming the only way to do this is to make a Job folder, put all the jobs in there and build each lab/room/basic image like this.
My issue with that is if I make a job to install Adobe Reader 1.0 and then copy that job to 30 labs folders, when Adobe Reader 1.1 comes out, I have to change each 1.0 in all 30 lab folders one at a time. With Group Policy, change the same policy and it changes in all OU's since it's the same policy.
Hopefully that makes sense.
And you'll probably ask "why not just use Group Policy then?". The simple answer is that the network admins don't want us to.
Thanks!