How To Push Adobe Flash Updates Over the Network
By Steve Bostedor
Adobe Flash Player has been the target of many security attacks lately due to its inherent security flaws. Adobe updates the Flash player frequently.
It’s very difficult to get all of the systems on your network updated because it requires Administrator permissions to apply the updates. There aren’t any inexpensive tools for pushing these updates out so I will show you how to do this using Bozteck VNCScan.
Here are the steps in a nutshell:
- Download the flash player distribution from here
- Create the script in the Script Manager
- Add the flash install file to the script window
- Ensure that you have access permissions to the remote computer(s)
- Select the computers that you’d like to deploy the script to
- Select the script from the dropdown
- Watch it work
Downloading Flash Player
You can download the scriptable Flash player from http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/fp_distribution3.html. For this tutorial, we’re going to download the Internet Explorer executable.
Create the script
Open the script manager using the Tools => "Scripts and Commands” menu as shown below:
From the window below, choose “New Script”
In the new script window,enter the script title and optionally a folder to group it in as well as any notes on the deployment and then choose to include a file.
Browse to the install_flash_player_10_active_x.exe file that you downloaded to choose it. You will see the path to the file below:
When the script is executed on the remote computer, the path to the included file will be %systemdrive%\temp\vncscan\install_flash_player_10_active_x.exe. Any files that you attach to script this way are always stored there. You’ll need to reference that location by using that in the path of the file that you’re calling. See the screen shot below:
%systemdrive%\temp\vncscan\\install_flash_player_10_active_x.exe /silent
Choose “Save and Close” to return back to the main window.
Deploy the script
We need to start by ensuring that the administrative access to the remote computer has been set. One way to do this on a per-computer basis is to right-click the computer and choose properties; and then flip to the “Windows Login” tab. Enter the Administrator username and password that is valid on the remote computer. If you’re not on a domain, just leave the domain field at %HOST%.
Now, select the computer in the Managed List. Now, click on the “Remote Scripts” and choose your new script.
The window below will pop up and the software will be deployed:
Keeping Up to Date
You can keep this script up to date easily because Adobe always names the file the same every time. Simply return to the website and download the latest version, remove the one in the script, and then add this new download. Simply re-deploy and you’re up to date!
Deploying VNC To Computers (Updated)
By Steve Bostedor
Introduction
Bozteck VENM Console makes it very easy to deploy many versions of the VNC (Virtual Network Computing) remote control software to desktops and servers on your network.
With VENM, you simply create a template of settings called a Deployment Profile, select some computers, and choose to deploy VNC to them from the toolbar. Using the settings in your Deployment Profile, VNC is copied onto the remote computers, the services are installed and started, and you are ready to remote control the desktops!
Security and Authentication
Because this tool is copying files to secured ares of the hard disk over the network, you do need to know the credentials of a valid Administrator level user for the remote computer(s). If the computers are joined to a domain, you can typically use the domain administrator account.
If the computer is not a member of an Active Directory domain, you simply use the local administrator username and password. You will see in the instructions below how to specify this using the %HOST% variable.
You can enter and save these login credentials in the group properties if you’d like. You can do this by right-clicking a group and choosing to view it’s properties. You can save them in the section called “Remote Login Settings”. You can also simply enter them in every time that you choose to deploy a computer.
Firewalls
Files are being transferred over the network and commands to start and stop services are traveling about. This requires that any firewalls be adjusted to allow for this.
The deployment process requires that TCP port 445 is open on each computer. In addition, it would be a good idea to allow TCP and UDP ports 138 and 139. These are the standard Windows filesharing ports.
The deployment script will open any additional ports required by VNC for you.
Step-By-Step
Select The Deployment Editor
Choose to create a new profile



February 26th, 2010





