This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
A few weeks back, my colleague Barry Feist gave me a useful tip for when deploying software using Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS). Barry doesn’t have his own blog, so here are the details.
Details of commands executed on the local machine by SMS are held at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\Execution History\packageid. It is not uncommon for there to be a failure within a distribution, so to rerun a failed installation, delete the key and re-advertise the package. According to the how to re-advertise a package post on MyITForum, Microsoft knowledge base article 257271 gives an alternative solution but Barry’s solution seems simpler to me.