I am trying to deploy Sun Java 6 u17 to machines that do not have Java installed.
The fixlet available is called : "Java Runtime Environment 6 Update 17 Available (JRE 6 Installed) Updates for Windows Application Update 15.90 MB Sun 11/2/2009 "
which I realize explicitly says that it needs JRE 6 to be on a machine before this update will work. The deployment works great when a previous version is installed.
What I can’t find is a fixlet that allows me to install Java - not update a previous installation. Or is there some way to force the fixlet I have to install Java?
So BigFix does not usually provide Software Install Tasks. They usually only provide Software Update fixlets. The difference being that the fixlet is meant to fix a piece of software already installed. That being said, most of the fixlets which upgrade a piece of software can be turned into Tasks.
In this case you could copy the fixlet and change the relevance to check to make sure the current version is not installed.
Code snippet
((((((if( name of operating system starts with “Win” ) then platform id of operating system != 3 else false) AND (name of operating system as lowercase starts with “win”)) AND ((language of version block of file “kernel32.dll” of system folder contains “English”) OR (exists key “HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\MUILanguages” whose (exists value of it) of registry))) AND (not exists key “HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion” whose (exists value “ProductId” of it OR exists value “CommonFilesDir” of it) of registry AND not exists values “PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE” whose (it as string as lowercase = “ia64”) of keys “HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment” of registry)) AND (not exists key whose (((it contains “java” OR it contains “j2se”) AND (it contains “runtime environment” OR it contains “update”)) of (value “DisplayName” of it as string as lowercase)) of key “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall” of registry)) AND (name of operating system != “WinNT”)) AND (exists file “msiexec.exe” whose (version of it >= “3.0”) of system folder)
Better yet, you could export the fixlet, change the XML to make it a task and re-import it. You then need to change the relevance as indicated above.
This is the process we follow, your environment may have different requirements.