Create Your Own DS Inventory Work Around

It has been through experience that we learn new ways to solve problems when we are confronted with them. Here are a few tricks that I have used to get around some Altiris DS limitations.

Use Add/Remove Programs to track distributions through Deployment Solution.

For image updates I utilize an Add/Remove Programs entry to track the image version. I can then track how many of each version has been deployed. I can also use this to deploy fixes to specific images if needed.

The entry can be added under “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall”. Just add a new key with the name of your choosing and place a string value called DisplayName in it with the information you want displayed. By doing this, you can use your DS console to filter for information you have deployed using the ‘Application Description’ filter.

This is also helpful when deploying home grown software and/or scripts that you want to track deployment of.