Best Practice for pushing updates?

[McAwesome]

We've been using Casper to track people's versions of programs like Java, Flash, Office, etc, but we haven't been actively pushing new versions to their machines. I'm starting to change that, but I've noticed one major problem: pushing the update while the program is open force closes it. This is problematic for obvious reasons. My work around is to cache the packages and make one policy that runs on startup, login, logout, and through Self Service that will install cached packages. I'm not sure if this is the best way to go about it.

What are your recommendations for pushing updates without interrupting people's activities? I'd really like to avoid phone calls about their browsers suddenly closing for no apparent reason.

[mm2270]

The only item from your brief list above that should be closing down applications is Office, and there are workarounds to making it not do that.
The discussion on whether applications need to be shut down before updates are applied is an old one. There is a continuing debate on it and differing opinions on the topic. I sit in the camp that states we don't need to be concerned about running applications and have developed ways of updating open apps, even for Office, but whether this makes sense is going to depend on how comfortable you really feel about it. Some people like to play it safe and make certain applications aren't running when installing an update, and they are not wrong. It likely is a little safer, but my experience and testing has led me to believe that the risk of any damage by updating while running is very low. YMMV of course.

[McAwesome]

My testing shows that Flash and Java both close Safari when they install by push. So I have to worry about them potentially closing their browser on them.

[mm2270]

I've never seen that happen in all the Flash and Java pushes and testing I've done. At least not when using the regular package install versions. Maybe with the .app installer that you normally get for FlashPlayer. Otherwise they should not be closing browsers when run silently.

Can you describe the exact versions of OS X and perhaps the versions of Flash/Java you've seen this happen with? Maybe its something new, but again, I've never seen them quit browsers when pushed via Casper.

[thoule]

I have a script I wrote for updating applications on end user's machines. I've been very happy with it. https://github.com/tmhoule/UpdateApps
Basically, it checks the version of applications, if an update is needed, it'll execute a policy to update it. If the app is in use, the end user gets a message asking to Skip or Retry. Apple Software Updates are applied if they don't require a reboot. If they do require restart, the user is prompted to Apply or Skip.

[McAwesome]

@mm2270 OSX 10.10.3, most recent versions of both Flash and Java through AutoPkgr

[thoule]

@McAwesome I agree with mm2270, Flash & java do not close web browsers when installed. Not current or previous versions for anything I do here.

[McAwesome]

@thoule @mm2270 Curious. After replying to mm2270's comment, I reran them as pushed on pretty much everything policies. It just finished without closing the browser and without real issue. What's particularly curious about this is it was closing it 100% of the time just this morning on multiple test machines. I'm still not comfortable enough to push it like that in general(need a higher ratio in testing first), but that does change things a bit.