Hey guys, I’m wanting to use a relevance expression to create an automatic group in which all members of the group have Microsoft Office (any version if possible). Anyone know how to word this kind of relevance? Thanks in advance for any help!
Ahhh, the possibilities…
I would suggest checking out the site BES Inventory and License for Analysis (Deprecated) Microsoft Office Suite Information (Windows) as a starting point for your relevance.
It looks like they are using the Uninstall keys in the registry and filtering them.
I would use the relevance from the Microsoft Office Suite Installation Date(s) property as it is the most compact.
I’m using the following relevance currently and it looks like it works for the most part. I just need to add a few more exceptions to catch everything:
exists regapp “excel.exe” or exists regapp “Microsoft Excel.app” or exists folder “/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008”
This is bringing in both Windows and Macs that have Office installed. (At least Excel, but if Excel is installed I’m assuming that all of Office is installed) However I know there are some Macs in on our network that have a folder called “Microsoft Office 2008” or “Microsoft Office 2010” which has the .apps within them, so they wouldn’t be added without the exists looking for that folder.
I was hoping there was a way to catch all types of office, whether it be a folder or app or 2007-2016.
Do you know of a way to get the relevance to pick up all forms of office?
I would hope that regapps would work, but not so sure for some of the newer office releases, like 365…
Do they still register as applications in Office 365?
For the Mac side, consider a regex instead of string matching?
The real question here is “What is the best way to manually detect all Office installs?” If we can agree on that, then we can probably write relevance for it.
We don’t have any Office 365 installed, and we’re not going to be purchasing any through the company. However we are giving the end users the option to purchase it on their own, so it would be nice to be able to still find them if they install it so we can push updates to them so they stay patched. I’m actually not sure if Office 365 shows up with the current relevance, since we don’t have any currently; I’m also unsure if it registers as applications.
What is the “regex” command? Do you have any examples? Or even links to documentation about the command? I’m really wanting to get as much information in regards to bigfix language/relevance.
I wholeheartedly think that the real question is as you say, “What is the best way to detect all Office installs?”
It’s a nifty string matching type language. BigFix uses the Posix version
https://developer.bigfix.com/relevance/reference/regular-expression.html
q: (it, case insensitive regex “Microsoft Office.*” = it) of (“Microsoft Office 365”; “Microsoft Office 2016”; “Microsoft Office 2012”; “Microsoft Office 2000”; “Open Office”; “microsoft office 2013”)
A: Microsoft Office 365, True
A: Microsoft Office 2016, True
A: Microsoft Office 2012, True
A: Microsoft Office 2000, True
A: Open Office, False
A: microsoft office 2013, True
For more relevance stuff, you should check http://developer.bigfix.com
Especially the Relevance Tutorial.
Great stuff here brolly33! Really appreciate your help! I have a lot of projects I’m working on right now in regards to Bigfix so this will help a ton! I’ll check out that link and see what it has to offer.
As far as the relevance you wrote; will regex cover both OS’s? (Windows/Mac) If so then this would be perfect for creating an automatic group to find which computers have office.