1. Kentucky Inmate Package Program
2. Difference Between Program And Absolute Music
3. Difference Between Program And Policy

With the introduction of SCCM 2012, Microsoft debuted a new way of managing software. This method is Applications. The new application model closed a lot of the gaps left by packages in SCCM 2007. This article will go through the similarities and differences between the two, and will also tell you when one may be better then the other. The application model, combined with the application catalog, is where Microsoft is going. The day will most likely come where there is no Software Center and everything is done via the website that hosts the application catalog.

Learning how to create and manage applications now, as well as beginning to slowly migrate your legacy packages to applications, will benefit you in the long run. Differences I will start with a quick run-through of the differences between applications and packages. First, applications are primarily designed for user deployments, while packages are primarily designed for device deployments. You can still use packages for user deployments and applications for device deployments – the settings in each type are just more geared for one versus the other. Either of these types can also be installed using required deployments, either for user or device.

Packages are far easier and less time consuming to set up than applications. For an application, the administrator must figure out the correct detection clause, and fill out a lot more information. Packages are created the same way they are created in SCCM 2007, and the administrator only has about five screens to go through.

Second, applications can utilize the new approval request feature. This is the feature that allows the administrator to deploy applications to a wider user base, while still maintaining license control. You can find an entire article on approval requests here:. Third, applications provide a much greater level of detail when looking at the application’s deployment status.

It pulls up error codes, and also has more categories of statuses. Fourth, the application feature can deploy apps to devices that are in the Apple App Store (for iOS devices), Google Play store (Android devices) or the Windows Store (for Windows Phone or Windows 8). This allows administrators to provide these apps in a managed format. Applications Applications give you more options to target particular devices. You can set detection method clauses to determine if a particular file, folder, registry key, or Windows installer code exists.

If the condition is met, then the application either runs or it doesn’t, depending on what the administrator specifies. With packages, the administrator would have to specify certain files or file types in the Software Inventory section of the SCCM client. SCCM must have a pervious inventory record of these files or file types to create collections based on them. The application model makes this whole process much simpler, because it can look at any criteria on the fly. An article on these methods is forthcoming.

Applications can also be superseded. This means that if you update your version of Flash player, and you supersede the old version, the application will re-run, and install the new version of Flash without having to redeploy it. Applications provide an entire process of developing an application, deploying it, and then eventually retiring it. For certain installer types, applications are very easy. If you have a MSI, SCCM will automatically set the name, manufacturer, version, and uninstall string (you change these if you want) for you. It will also set the detection clause for you based on the Windows installer code. This doesn’t only apply to MSI’s.

It also applies to apps for the Windows Store that comes with Windows 8. Applications that come in a Scriptable installs format (i.e. EXE’s) will still work with the application method, but the administrator must add all of this information manually. Finally, applications utilize single-instance storage (now called the content library), meaning that they only need to store the content once on your distribution points. For packages, content must be saved to the distribution point and to the package share to deploy software from the network (i.e. Not have to download the content then run it).

Applications do not have this restriction. They get saved one time, and run either from the network or by downloading the content first.

Packages Packages are far easier and less time consuming to set up than applications. For an application, the administrator must figure out the correct detection clause, and fill out a lot more information. Packages are created the same way they are created in SCCM 2007, and the administrator only has about five screens to go through.

Also, management of the deployment of specific programs is separated with packages. With applications, you are deploying all of the deployment types that you set up.

You cannot pick only one to deploy. The biggest issue this gives is if you need different user experience settings for an install from Software Center versus an install from a task sequence. Say you have one deployment type that is set to run only when a user is logged in or allow the user to interact with the program. Applications or Packages cannot be added to a task sequence with either of these settings.

For applications, you would have to have two separate applications to do this. One glaring disadvantage to packages is reporting. Applications have much more detailed reporting then packages. With packages you only get whether the install was success or failed. Example of Application Deployment Status Example of Package Deployment Status Summary Because Microsoft is moving towards the application model, enterprises running SCCM 2012 should begin migrating their legacy packages to applications. A tool to help you convert your packages to applications is available at:. I hope this article helped explain a little bit of the differences between the two.

Applications vs Packages, why the ConfigMgr Package model will not go anywhere 5 minutes read During my last projects I came across a lot of issues around Software Deployment, mainly with the not-so-new-anymore Application model of Configuration Manager 2012. Here’s a list of issues with Applications I came across and why I think the ‘legacy’ package model won’t go anywhere very soon: Applications don’t know what a recurrence schedule is Packages can be deployed and configured with a recurring schedule. If you want to have your program run on every Monday morning, just configure the recurrence accordingly.

You can’t do that with Applications. The App model doesn’t know what a recurrence pattern is. It’s debatable if Software / Scripts / whatever that need to be run on a schedule could maybe not also be executed via a different mechanism like a scheduled task or startup script or if ‘recurring applications’ really don’t make any sense, but I heard customers asking for it with sometimes good reasoning 😉 One example of such a good reason is the usage of the Powershell App Deployment Toolkit. You don’t know the Powershell App Deployment Toolkit? Go look here: With it you can configure installation deferrals and let the user decide the time of installation. But how do you ‘re-execute’ the Installation at a certain time?

Easily done with Packages, just configure the recurrence schedule. With Applications you need to reconfigure a client-setting to get a similar user experience. If the user decides he doesn’t want that software installed right now and defers the installation, the Toolkit exits and ‘fails’. At the time of the next ‘Application Deployment Evaluation Cycle’ which is configured via the Client Settings (default once a day), the ConfigMgr client will evaluate the software to not installed and prompt the user again with the installation. Applications tend to break OSD task sequences I’ve seen loads of environments where customers thought using Applications inside of an OSD Task Sequence would make sense, and to be quite honest, why shouldn’t it? It’s a supported way of deploying software to machines.

But the sad reality is that most of the times I’ve seen people do it (even in my own lab) the usage of Applications in an OSD TS causes random failures. Usually the most problems occurred when the device that was built resided in a location where it needed to communicate to a remote Management Point. The biggest issue was that the failures were random. Applications used to fail with an evaluation or Policy download error.

If you ran the deployment again on that machine it would probably work. One customer encountered the infamous ‘SSD issue’ Microsoft now works around by implementing a new timeout variable: SMSTSMPListRequestTimeout The issue here seems to be that after a reboot Applications would normally fail to download any Policies from their Management Point because the Task Sequence was faster than the initialization of the network stack. This doesn’t happen always and mostly on SSDs and in ‘slowly’ connected locations, but it was a pain to troubleshoot. The variable only exists from SCCM 2012 R2 on.

If you are still on an earlier version, implement a ‘wait’ step of about 3-5 minutes after each reboot before every Application install step. Although using the app model inside a Task Sequence is a completely supported technique, because of these issues I usually don’t use Applications but Packages.

That’s one reason why I wrote this script here: Using packages always solved all the problems I had with applications. I know a lot of other people that don’t use the application model AT ALL in Task Sequences. What is your take here? Applications are out of your control – are they? That’s not true. With applications you have far more control over who gets which deployment type or where what is installed, but what if you, in a Task Sequence, want to explicitly choose a Deployment Type? Well, that doesn’t work.

That’s not how applications work. I guess there can be a few scenarios where the configured requirements for an application’s deployment type are not yet met inside of a Task Sequence but you want to have that specific Deployment Type installed anyway, but this is probably the exception, not the rule. If you want to install an application inside of a Task Sequence you must keep in mind that all of the application model’s rules are still valid inside the Task Sequence. That means dependencies and requirements must be met to have a deployment type evaluated to be applicable and get it installed. If you want to pre-deploy applications to an user’s primary device then just set the User Device Affinity (UDA) in the TS. See this blog post by Peter van der Woude: Applications cause unnecessary overhead Many environments have packages that for example copy files, set registry keys, configure local groups, basically do anything but installing software.

Some even don’t have any content that’s being copied, these packages only execute command lines. Again, it might be argued that these tasks could be done otherwise. Startup scripts, scheduled tasks, GPO/GPP or whatever you like, but using packages is still not a bad way to go. Would it be that clever to use the app model for something like that?

I don’t think so. For these tasks the app model will absolutely cause unnecessary overhead or maybe even some problems actually creating the application. Detection methods will probably be the biggest problem for something like that.

Of course you can use Powershell scripts to create detection methods for every scenario you have, but that’s sometimes just too much for ‘small’ tasks. Conclusion Why did I write this article? That’s what I just asked myself as well.

Kentucky Inmate Package Program

I think that the new app model gives you awesome features to deploy software to machines and users (like granular requirements, supersedence rules), but the app model still gives me a feeling of ‘beta’ stadium. It sometimes still behaves in ways I would not expect it to behave. It is still not too intuitive to do any reporting or scripting with applications.

Difference Between Program And Absolute Music

Feedback to users is still a bit flawed, also I would love to see a “single point of entry” for users to install and uninstall applications. We now have the Application Catalog, Software Center and the company portal. How should a user know what to find where? I believe what I want to say is, think before running to the app model and neglecting packages. It might be worthwhile while moving away from the package model to check each package if it would be better of as an application or maybe something completely else. What is your opinion on the app model? What problems did you encounter I did not pick up here?

Difference Between Program And Policy

Updated: April 05, 2014 Share on.