dmg creation for office

[Vitamin-Z]

We need to push Outlook 2016 to our users but the package that MS offers is crap. Basically I have to use Composer to create an dmg via a snapshot which seems to work. My question is about the updates. Once I install Outlook there is a large update that I can install using auto-update which updates the minor versioning. I figured that if i do the update and then create a dmg using a snapshot this would be a better approach than pushing an update after the initial package installation. Does anyone use this approach and what would be a downside, if any?

[adamcodega]

What is wrong with the PKG? If anything I would try to modify the PKG then try and capture it with Composer.

[Vitamin-Z]

I'm not sure what is wrong with it but it won't deploy via a push. I think the way they packaged it (with prompts and license agreement) might be a problem. The only way I was able to deploy is installing and capturing with Composer.

[bentoms]

@Mansour you should be able to deploy the PKG via Casper by caching & installing from cached.

[Vitamin-Z]

The dmg from MS does not work for me. They also seem fairly small (59.3MB for Lync & 302MB for Outlook) and I'm suspecting these are similar to some Windows executable s in the sense that once you execute the package then downloads the needed components from their servers.But that's just a guess. When I try to push the dmg the policy run successfully but Outlook or Lynk do not install. If I use composer everything installs fine.I would need to test this on a broader group to make sure but so far i have tested on 3 Macs and everything seems to be working.

[chriscollins]

Wait a sec. Are you trying to deploy the actual dmg you downloaded from MS or are you extracting the .pkg file and adding THAT to casper admin and deploying that? You need to use the .pkg inside the dmg to install it, not the dmg itself.

I only ask because you said "When I push the dmg the policy runs successfully but Outlook does not install".

We use the installers from MS without a hitch.

[Vitamin-Z]

Chris, no...I did not extract the pkg. I didn't know I could do that. Do I use composer for that?

[mm2270]

You just pull the package out of the DMG once its mounted and then upload that into Casper. DMGs are only supported in Casper when they are specifically built from Composer. Vendor supplied DMGs are just containers for an .app or .pkg within them, not to be used as is for deployment.

[Vitamin-Z]

mm2270, can you please elaborate on "pull the package out of the DMG"? I'm not familiar with this process. Sorry for the basic questions. Windows was my realm for a long time.

[Vitamin-Z]

Also, interestingly enough taking a snapshot for Outlook (with updates) and Lync (with updates) and making a dmg out of them seems to work. I just got another Mac and tested both and they seem to work. I'm just trying to figure out if there might be a down side.

[chriscollins]

@Mansour The DMG is just a container, like an .iso on Windows. When you double click the .dmg file and mount it, just grab the .pkg file and drag it out to your desktop and it will copy it there. That .pkg you can add to Casper Admin like any package. Use that in your install policy instead of the .dmg.

[Vitamin-Z]

Thanks Chris. I got it figured out and tested. Works great including installing all the updates right after the main package. I guess now I know how to deploy this both ways.