Updating MD2013 workstations to MD2014 workstation by update patches

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Each year IS&T update the Managed Desktop by producing a new image for installation on new workstations and lab workstations that get re-imaged each summer. For existing workstations that will not be re-imaged, such as Office workstations, we apply a series of update patches that install the new and updated software and settings over a short period of time in order to bring the workstation up to the latest version of Managed Desktop. We do this so that Office machines that have staff personal settings and software installed are not re-imaged with the default image.

Applying these patches is done over a few weeks as we have to apply a series of updates to over 4000 workstations and the updates can be quite large and require the workstation to restart after installation. For this reason for the initial roll out we try to distribute the update to a collection of workstations over night by waking them up remotely and applying the updates. This is not always possible for a variety of reasons, such as the workstation having a user still logged in or being a laptop that requires a password or USB pen drive inserted in order for it to boot. Any machine that is not updated overnight will be updated via a different method.

MD2014

There are six patches required to update MD2013 workstations to MD2014. These are numbered MD Patches 17 to 22 because for MD patches we keep the sequence from the initial roll out of MD7 in 2011. Each patch requires the workstation to restart in order for the update to complete successfully.

The process is scheduled to begin from Wednesday 17th September in a phased rollout, starting with SLS workstations.

Updates applied by each patch

Patch 1 (MD7 Workstation Patch-17)

  • Update the Microsoft User Environment Virtualization (UE-V) agent to version 2.0.1
  • Update the vWorkspace Connector to version 8.0
  • Alter laptop power settings to enable hibernate if not enabled

Patch 2 (MD7 Workstation Patch-18)

  • Install .NET 4.5.1 Framework
  • update the Enterprise Vault client version 10.0.4
  • Update Realplayer Enterprise to version 2.1.11
  • Update QuickTime Player to version 7.7.5

Patch 3 (MD7 Workstation Patch-19)

  • Update Adobe Reader to version 11.0.7
  • Install Asian Language Font Pack for Adobe Reader XI
  • Update the FileOpen client to version B942
  • Update the Keyserver client to version 7.1

Patch 4 (MD7 Workstation Patch-20)

  • Uninstall Java 1.6 Update 45 JRE
  • Uninstall Java 1.6 Update 45 JDK
  • Install Java 1.7 Update 55 JRE

Patch 5 (MD7 Workstation Patch-21)

  • Update Windows Management Framework to version 4 (includes Powershell 4)

Patch 6 (MD7 Workstation Patch-22)

  • Update Internet Explorer to version 11

Checking the version of Managed Desktop for your workstation

In order to check which version of Managed Desktop you are using open the ‘MD Help’ application from the ‘Start Menu\All Programs’ menu. When this has opened, select the ‘Workstation Information’ tab along the top of the application and check the ‘Version’ and ‘Patch’ levels within the main window.
If the patch level is 17 or greater, but not yet 22 then your workstation will be in the process of being updated to MD2014.

Once the workstation is at Patch 22 and Version MD2014 all of the required updates will have run successfully.

Message on login

Users will receive a message during the login process when their machine has been successfully updated to MD2014.

Patching Schedule

Attached is a schedule of when we apply each patch to groups of Office workstations.
Due to the large number of workstations that need doing and the time and resources required to deliver the updates, the updates will be kept to around 300 at a time as a maximum. In order to achieve this, workstations will be grouped according to their name, for instance all workstations called ‘ACES-DA’, ‘ACES-DB’, ‘ACES-DC’ and ‘ACES-DD’ will be in the same patching schedule.

Just because a workstation is scheduled to get a patch doesn’t mean this will have happened successfully. Factors that would prevent this include:

  • A user is currently logged in to the workstation
  • The workstation can not be woken up by Wake-On-LAN (WOL)
  • The workstation is a laptop that requires either a USB pen drive or a PIN in order for the machine to boot
  • The workstation has less than 2Gb of free disk space

The current status can be see here:
\\hallam.shu.ac.uk\aipapps\MD7\PatchesWorkstation\MD2014UpdatePatchingSchedule.xlsx