Planning Tech

Like every other big product from Microsoft that we need to control mass of clients, we need the easiest Central management available.  Because you install your Office Communication Server I come from a point that you already works with GPO before.  Like Active Directory in OCS we also have the ability to use GPO for a central management to execute many tasks with lots of benefits you can take from it(Just think how much time you save when you work with 1000 clients or more….).

 

The Group Policy can be used in many different ways; at first you can deploy all your clients the Communicaitor.msi with easy GPO configuration, you also can maintain OCS client’s application with another GPO, We need to remember that we can deploy GPO on both Users or Computers (Depending on your company policy).

 

I can talk about Group Policy without seeing the end of this …so I will make my life much easier and direct you to Microsoft website so you can be the best you can…

 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/grouppolicy/default.aspx

OCS2007 – Group Policy Features

Here I will give few examples on what you can do with your GPO settings so please look the best features for your Local Environment (All settings taken from Microsoft site!):

Policy Name	Definition
AutoDiscoveryRetryInterval	Set time interval to retry a failed automatic connection to the server.
CalendarStatePublicationInterval	Frequency of updates to presence from Outlook Calendar.
CallLogAutoArchivingPolicy	Controls saving of call logs to the Outlook Conversation History folder.
ConfiguredServerCheckValues	List of additional servers for logging on.
CustomStateURL	Configure up to four custom presence states.
DGRefreshPeriod	Interval for updating distribution groups from the address book.
DGUrlExternal	External address book location.
DGUrlInternal	Internal address book location.
DisableAVConferencing	Supersedes DisableVideo. (See also DisablePC2PCVideo.)
DisableCalendarPresence	Disables the loading of free or busy data from the Outlook messaging and collaboration client, and prevents this data from being published. (Replaces DisableCalendarState.)
DisableConversationWindowTabs	Disable display of custom Conversation window extensions.
DisableDataConferencing	(Replaces DisableCollaborationApps.)
DisableEmailComparisonCheck	Disable comparison of SMTP address with Outlook user profile.
DisableFederatedPromptDisplayName	Show the sign-in name or SIP address of federated contacts.
DisableFreeBusyInfo	Controls display of free or busy status from Outlook.
DisableHttpConnect	Disable the HTTP connection fallback option.
DisableICE	Affects the ability to establish voice or video calls behind a firewall or Network Address Translation (NAT) layer.
DisableMeetingSubjectAndLocation	Prevents Communicator from publishing the subject and location information of a meeting. This value is not used if DisableCalendarPresence is set, or if the Update my status based on calendar data option on the Personal tab is not set.
DisableOneNote12Integration	Shows or hides the OneNote 2007 command in the Conversation window.
DisableOnlineContextualSearch	Removes the Find Previous Conversations command and disables display of the previous conversations.
DisablePC2PCVideo	Disables peer-to-peer video calls. Supersedes DisableVideo. (See also DisableAVConferencing.)
DisablePICPromptDisplayName	Controls the display of the sign-in name or SIP address of public internet connectivity (PIC) contacts.
DisableRTFIM	Disables rich text in instant messages.
DisableServerCheck	Controls the sign-in check for server name and version.
DisableSimultaneousRinging	Disables the Unified Communications Enterprise Voice feature Simultaneously Ring an Additional Number.
EnableAppearOffline	Users can choose Appear Offline from the Presence menu.
EnableEventLogging	Turns on logging of certain errors to the Windows Event log, and disables the user interface for this feature.
EnableSQMData	(Replaces CEIP.) Enables the Customer Improvement Program option and disables the user interface for this feature.
EnableStrictDNSNaming	(Replaces DisableStrictDNSNaming.) Controls how Communicator interacts with SIP servers that have non-standard FQDNs.
EnableTracing	Creates a log for troubleshooting signaling failures, and disables the user interface for this feature.
ExUMEnabled	Identify user account as enabled for voice mail.
IMAutoArchivingPolicy	Controls archiving of instant messages to the Outlook 2007 Conversation History folder, and disables the user interface for this feature.
LocationProfile	Configures a user’s default location profile.
MapiPollInterval	Frequency of loading calendar data from MAPI.
MRASServerURI	Location of the Media Relay Access server.
msRTCLine	Line information for Unified Communications Enterprise Voice.
NotificationsForNewSubscribers	Controls notifications received when a user is added to another user’s contact list, and disables the user interface for this feature.
TelephonyMode	Configures telephony for Communicator 2007.
VoicemailURI	Location of custom voice mail server.
WebServicePollInterval	Frequency of loading calendar data from the Web services provider.

 

 

OCS2007 – Clients Deployment Using GPO

Here I want to give you all the steps you need to do when you want to use Group Policy to deploy the Office Communicator 2007 Client. You always need to remember that with GPO we can be more predictive in much less time needed if we chose not to use the GPO in our local environment. I will explain the process with few easy steps but you need to remember that you cannot precede the next step until you finish the provios one.

 

Step 1: Configure Installation access

Before we start the GPO configuration we firs need to chose the place we going to put the GPO for clients access, we also need to share this folder with the NTFS Permissions configuration. For all users need to access the .MSI file all we need to do is to Enable the “Read” permission, and for the admin (You…)Give full access so you can control all the folder specification.

1. First download from Microsoft the  following  Packages :

• Ocs Communicator 2007(Also download the patch provided).
• Also download the Live Meeting 2007
• Outlook 2007 Conferencing Add-in Pack (This provides you a new tab at your Outlook like we show in the article above).

1. After you download all packages you need to set the UNC path of the files to be directed to the shred folder. To execute this operation please follow :

Run “msiexec /a communicator.msi TARGETDIR=<UNC path to shared folder>”

Example:  msiexec /a communicator.msi TARGETDIR=\\FileServer\CommuiClient

After you set the UNC path proceed to the “Patch” for the open .MSI files:

Run “msiexec /p communicator.msp /a <UNC path to shared folder>\communicator.msi”

For example:

msiexec /p communicator.msp /a \\ FileServer \ CommuiClient \communicator.msi

1. If you do exactly the way I show you should see New folders in the sheered folder and .MSI file :

• PFiles folder.
• communicator.msi
• System32 Folder.

 

1. Unpack the .msi files from LMSetup.exe and ConfAddins_Setup.exe into the sheered folder.
2. Change directories to the .MSI file :

Run “LMSetup.exe –out <folder path>” and “ConfAddins_Setup.exe –out <folder path>”

folder path – Please chose a folder you will know where you put her because if not you can use the wrong file!

Copy the extracted LMConsole.msi and LMAddinPack.msi to the root of your shared network folder. (\\FileServer\CommuiClient):

Step 2: Configuring the Group Policy

Now we need to create a new GPO so we can deploy the .MSI files, its east to manage just follow the next easy steps:

1. Log-on to your management console server (If you don’t have one it’s good time to create it! Reduce the tasks you need to perform from the Domain-Controller).
2. Now open Administrative Tools and open your GPO Management  Console

 

Note!

You can get access faster if you open your Command line and type “gpmc.msc”.

1. After you see your console open, Expand Forest and chose your Domains.
2. Now you need to choose on witch Organization Unit you want to apply the new policy.
3. Right-click the OU and select “Create and Link a GPO Here”.  Enter a name for your GPO.
4. Right-click the newly created GPO and select Edit.  This will open the Group Policy Object Editor.
5. Now you need to chose the way you want to deploy the policy (Users or Computers):

• Workstations – Software Settings under Computer Configuration.
• Users – expand Software Settings under User Configuration. 

 

1. Right-click Software Installation and choose New Package.  In the Open dialog box, enter the UNC path of your shared folder (\\FileServer\CommuiClient) and click Open. Now you need to Choose the Communicator.msi file and Open it.

 

1. In the Deploy Software dialog box, choose Assigned and click OK.

 

10.  Click on Software Installation in the GPO.  In the right pane, right-click on Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 and select Properties.

11.  Select the Deployment tab on User Configuration , check the “Install this application at logon” box and change the “Installation user interface options” to Basic. 

12.  Repeat steps 6 – 11 on the other .MSI files  LMConsole.msi and LMAddin.msi.