MAC DEP - iLife & iWork Mac Store Apps

[TomDay]

Just got our delivery of new 300 MacBook Airs and we are setting these up via a pre-stage enrollment, working great except one sticking point. The versions of iLife and iWork are a little dated and the Mac Store is prompting for an Apple ID to update them. We are using VPP licenses to deploy these apps to all of our macs so I'm trying to figure out how to get our VPP copies on these new macs in the best way. Wondering how others are doing this? Initially, I am thinking of scripting the removal of these apps and then installing via Self Service.

Thx, Tom

[stevewood]

@TomDay if you’re using VPP and you have the apps setup in your JPS as automatic installs (not in front of my console to verify exact wording) then simply deleting the apps should trigger the JPS to reinstall automatically. No need to place them in Self Service.

And if these apps were not originally installed with VPP I believe that is why they are not being updated automatically.

As always YMMV so test thoroughly.

[TomDay]

I do have automatic install set up, so I'll give it a try just deleting the apps first thing in the Am, Thx Steve.

[Eigger · Accepted solution]

What we are doing is we check this

because I discovered that this works the same as on Mobile Devices

because of bandwidth issues, I use appstoreextract to download the iLife and iWork apps, then deploy them, JamfPro and VPP will manage these apps automatically if it detected it doesnt have MASReceipt.

[TomDay]

@Eigger Hmm we actually have that setup already to "Automatically update the app". Wonder what's up with that on our system?

[TomDay]

I went in to each app for these in question in jamf and hit "Force Update" and boom, they started updating, no need to remove the installed apps!

[jhuls]

@TomDay I just recently ran into this so I spoke with both Jamf and my Apple SE. Both suggest removing the non-VPP applications and then let Jamf install the VPP applications you need.

[TomDay]

@jhuls The method @Eigger mentioned above works perfectly. VPP apps will replace the apps hat come with the OS from Apple. I did have to kick start the push once in a while by clicking "Force Update" in the app.

[jhuls]

@TomDay That's great that it worked. I tried that multiple times and it never worked hence why I contacted Jamf and Apple. Oddly enough both parties acted as if this was the only way to do it(removing non-vpp applications first).