In addition to deploying Applixure Agent to PCs using the traditional install methodologies, using some suitable system management software (such as Microsoft's SCCM), many organizations want to install software destined to all machines already in to the operating system image.
This methodology allows for having required software pre-existing at the time of the deployment, without having to wait for software distribution to run and do an install individually on each machine.
When doing image -based deployment of Applixure Agent, few additional preparational steps needs to be done just before the OS image is captured, in order to ensure that the deployed machines do not appear the same to the Applixure Service because their unique identifiers are cached and duplicated.
Background
After first startup of Windows service that Applixure Agent's installation package creates, the agent will generate unique identifiers for the machine so that it may be differentiated from any other machine in the environment it belongs to. This identifying information is what the Applixure Service uses to distinguish between agents and what ensures that data reported by the agent will be associated with the right device.
In order to continue utilizing these identifiers from there on, Applixure Agent caches that information, along with all the other locally cached data, in set of directories on a local disk. However, for the purpose of creating operating system image (i.e. creating duplicates of) out of machine where Applixure Agent has already been installed, removal of all of the cached data is necessary as otherwise said identifiers will be re-used for all machines derived from the image, effectively appearing as one and the same machine to Applixure Service.
If the cached data is removed from the image, then each PC deployed from the OS image will re-generate new, unique, identifiers upon first startup, ensuring that they will show up as individual agents in the Applixure Service.
Steps to remove cached data
Please note: these steps has to be done before the very last shutdown before imaging tool is run against the machine: if the machine is rebooted and Agent service is restarted once more, cached data is re-created!
STEP 1: Stop the Applixure Agent service
Start Services -applet either from the shortcut in your Windows Start Menu, or entering "services.msc" in the Windows' Run -dialog to launch the applet:
Once the Services -applet has started, locate service called Applixure Agent in the list and select it. If the service is running, stop it from the right-click context menu or from the stop icon in the toolbar:
You can verify that the service has been stopped by looking at Windows Task Manager's list of processes and seeing that there is no instance of ApxService.exe visible in the list of running processes.
STEP 2: Remove Applixure Agent's cache directories
In order to remove cached directories, you will need to go to directory on the system drive (typically C: drive) which is under normal circumstances hidden from display.
Start Windows Explorer instance, and type "%ProgramData%" into Explorer window's address bar and press enter:
Shown folder should now display contents of C:\ProgramData (or equivalent) directory. From the displayed list of folders, enter into Applications -directory and delete directory called Applixure within that directory:
Change back to previous C:\ProgramData directory and enter into Applixure -directory. This folder should list directories Core and Data. Delete Data directory:
After removing these two directories, machine is now ready to be imaged.
Quick summary
- Stop Applixure Agent Windows service
- Delete %ProgramData%\Applications\Applixure -directory
- Delete %ProgramData%\Applixure\Data -directory
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