Comment SMS and Altris 400lb sledge hammer (Score 2, Insightful) 84
There are many suggestions here to use SMS or Altris when he has stated that he only has 180 users and still 30 running Windows '98. This is not a company that is will to part with cash for enterprise solutions if they still have Windows '98 lying around. It is also not a company that is overly concerned with security.
I worked in a similar environment in the past and I found that with a properly setup Active Directory and some painfully written batch scripts I was able to get software to install perfectly on every machine in the office. All it takes is a few hours of writing the scripts and testing for each software that you want to install and then you never have to think about that software again. I had a master script that ran when a user logged on that mapped all their printers and file shares, set a random local admin password and then check to see that all software was the latest version.
At my current job which is closer to 50,000 computers we use a much more elligant solution in PCCOE however it is really over kill for what you need.
http://odin749.bloger.com/
I worked in a similar environment in the past and I found that with a properly setup Active Directory and some painfully written batch scripts I was able to get software to install perfectly on every machine in the office. All it takes is a few hours of writing the scripts and testing for each software that you want to install and then you never have to think about that software again. I had a master script that ran when a user logged on that mapped all their printers and file shares, set a random local admin password and then check to see that all software was the latest version.
At my current job which is closer to 50,000 computers we use a much more elligant solution in PCCOE however it is really over kill for what you need.
http://odin749.bloger.com/
