group policy deploy of 2005 and activation

First off How can I deploy 2005 via group policy? I'm sure there is some step by step guide out there.

If I use group policy to deploy stand alone seats. Do I use one serial number for all my seats? What about activation?
Say I got 10 seats and I deploy them. Do I have to activate 10 times?

David

 

Well, I can answer some of your question: deploying via group policy.
I found some information on the 2005 disk...I think it was in the help file
of the Network Installation Wizard. I'm sorry I can't quite remember, I
printed it off.

Also, I will be talking from Active Directory in Windows Server 2003...there
may be some differences if you have 2000, but I'm not quite sure.
First create an Organizational Unit for the computers you wish to install
AutoCAD 2005 on...if you're doing it for all of them, you probably don't
need to do this. However, that separate group can be handy for testing the
deployment, too.
Use Network Installation Wizard to create the deployment image to a shared
location; this will drop the installation msi file and all the needed files
for installation. You can also create a transform file with this to use the
customized stuff in the Network Installation Wizard (acad.msi by itself is
just default install, the mst adds the customization...check the Help).
Then go into Group Policy, and under Computer Configuration, Software
Settings and Software Installation. Create your policy object here using
the installation msi file (and mst for the customization, if desired) that
was created from the Network Installation Wizard.
Assign that group policy object to the appropriate Organizational Unit, then
move any computers to deploy to into that Organizational Unit (if not using
a separate OU, just assign the policy to the Computers group). Check the
help along the way in the Software Installation dialog to make sure you're
selecting the settings you want.
A reboot of a computer to which it's been assigned should start the process.
The install should happen before logon, then the installation will finish
the first time CAD is opened. I sometimes had to wait a little, or reboot
more than once to get it to go. If it fails, check the event log of the
computer to see what went wrong, I found it very informational.

If you're using Express Tools and want to deploy them as well, you need to
create a separate assigned installation for that using the ExpressTools.msi
found in the \AdminImage\Support\Express folder of your AutoCAD installation
image. Make sure that it is assigned after the AutoCAD installation,
otherwise it will fail if it can't find AutoCAD installed.

As far as standalone...I think you can use the Network Installation Wizard
to create a standalone deployment just by checking that option. I would
guess that that can then work with Group Policy, but I have not tried it as
I have only done it with network licensing.

Hope that wasn't too confusing...please let me know if you have more
questions, I was kind of going from memory on that!

number for all my seats? What about activation?

 

Very good description! As far as the standalone activation however, it will activate on each client as they are launched the first time. The activation process is quick and painless but will not allow the 11th license to activate since you are licensed for 10 only. Autodesk tracks the activation requests, so if you try to go past your limit it will reject the rest. If you replace or move a license you'll need to contact Autodesk Product Registration to explain what happened and get them to reset your license activation count accordingly.

As far as Group Policy goes, if you are on W2003/AD, you can also extend your GPO using WMI Policy expressions to validate clients before pushing an installation. This can be helpful for avoiding errors from lack of disk space or not having prerequisite software installed. Sort of a poor-persons' SMS approach, but it works.