Desktop Connector Distribution with Microsoft Endpoint Manager

[omushahwar]

Hi All, 

We have started using Endpoint Manager more and more for deploying products, automatically or to post products to the Company Portal app. 

We figured we would start with Desktop Connector as the smallest and I wanted to share the steps we took to deploy it with Version 16. 

We found it best to make a Wintune 32 app packages for deployment.

1. Create your package folder I use the Root of C:\IntunePackage inside create an input and output folder and place the IntuneWinAppUtil.exe file 

2. Run the Desktop Connector Install so it creates the folder on C:\Autodesk, then copy the Folder under the input folder made above C:\IntunePackage\Input\Autodesk\Autodesk_Desktop_Connector_16.x.x.x. ( whatever your version number folder is)

3. Under the input folder create a Powershell script to copy the folder downloading from Endpoint manager to the C:\Autodesk folder on the users machines and run the command for the silent install this is the script we used below

Copy-Item -Path "Autodesk\*" -Destination "C:\Autodesk" -Recurse -force

cmd.exe /c ""C:\Autodesk\Autodesk_Desktop_Connector_16_1_1_1950_Win_64bit\Setup.exe" -i install --silent"

4. Open Powershell as Admin, Browse to your IntunePackage folder and run the IntuneWinAppUtil.exe and follow the prompts, selecting your input folder, your setup file which is the powershell script and the output folder to place the package in, this packages the script with the unzipped folder.

5. In Endpoint Manager Go to Apps and Add Windows app (Win32) and upload 

6. Set your Install command powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Install.ps1 (Whatever you named the Powershell Script)

7. Setup your Detection Rule we used a registry key associated with the desktop connector version we installed but you can use a file as well.

I assume a similar process could work for the Applications we havent gotten there just yet but the folders being uploaded would be much larger.

Hope this is helpful to others.

[omushahwar]

For what its worth for detection we used the Display Version Registry key found in the Uninstall Key for it under windows.

[gneuhof]

I know this is an older post, but I used this for a recent deployment of Desktop Connector and it helped me successfully deploy 16.10.0.2252 to my environment through Intune.

The only difference for me was having to include adding a registry key in my script for setting the workspace location. Because Intune executes the 32-bit version of PowerShell, my keys kept ending up in the Wow6432Node of the registry. I know there's documentation out there for this already, but I thought I'd add it here for anyone else who may stumble across this article.

To force Intune to execute PowerShell in the native architecture for the OS it's running on, use this as your install command:

%WINDIR%\sysnative\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Install.ps1

I had to use slightly different arguments to get the install to work. I'm sure they've changed since this post was made. I also had the copied files removed after installation. Here's my entire install script. Hopefully this helps out the next person as much as this post had helped me.

# Copy the installation files to the target
Copy-Item -Path "Autodesk\*" -Destination "C:\Autodesk" -Recurse -force

# Install Desktop Connector
cmd.exe /c ""C:\Autodesk\Autodesk_Desktop_Connector_16_10_0_2252_Win_64bit\Setup.exe" -i install -q"

# Delete the installation files
Remove-Item -LiteralPath C:\Autodesk\Autodesk_Desktop_Connector_16_10_0_2252_Win_64bit\ -Force -Recurse

# Create the ACC folder at the root of the C: drive
if (!(Test-Path -Path 'C:\ACC'))
{
    New-Item -Path 'C:\' -Name 'ACC' -ItemType 'Directory' | Out-Null
}

# Set Registry entry for the path
$registryPath = 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\Desktop Connector Advanced Settings'
$Name = "WorkspaceLocation"
$Value = "C:\ACC"
New-Item -Path $registryPath -Force | Out-Null
IF(!(Test-Path $registryPath))
{
    New-Item -Path $registryPath -Force | Out-Null
	New-ItemProperty -Path $registryPath -Name $Name -Value $Value ` 
	-PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null
}
ELSE {
	New-ItemProperty -Path $registryPath -Name $Name -Value $Value `
	-PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null
}
exit 0

[omushahwar]

Yeah it has and they changed the unzip folder structure of installation. Great to see the workspace location usage we kept ours default but I understand why poeple would change it. 

Thanks for the addition!