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Regarding the new Platform Pack downloading policy


fllorente

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Hi Support,

SmartDeploy has announced that, from now on, the Platforms Packs will no longer be downloadable through the website as until now and they must be downloaded from inside the application.

This "feature" effectively prevents those customers using older versions of the product from downloading new and updated Platform Packs, thus forcing us to upgrade to version 2.0 and completely redo our current platform in the next maintenance cycle, what will make us employ more time and efforts on it than usual.

Furthermore, in my opinion making such announcement on a mid-August Friday at 18:01h is at least upsetting. I must say I'm very disappointed with this new policy.

I expect you can provide us with a feasible workaround for this issue, so we can keep maintaining our current platform without having to completely rebuild it.

Thanks in advance and best regards,
-- Javier Llorente

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Well... yes and no. I have noticed that you can use the Smart Deploy console to download the PPK, then browse to the library folder where it is downloaded, and the PPK is there. You can then use your older version of Smart Deploy.

 I was on the fence about 2.0 much like you are. I am currently learning the new environment and it's capabilities. So I plan on giving it a day in court.

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2 hours ago, TJJAY said:

Well... yes and no. I have noticed that you can use the Smart Deploy console to download the PPK, then browse to the library folder where it is downloaded, and the PPK is there. You can then use your older version of Smart Deploy.

 I was on the fence about 2.0 much like you are. I am currently learning the new environment and it's capabilities. So I plan on giving it a day in court.

1

That's a possible workaround, but mind that you cannot install both 1.1.3010 and 2.0.x on the same computer so I would have to install 2.0.x on a different computer in order to download the Platform Packs.

And yes, the 2.0.x version looks really good and has some very interesting new features, and of course, I will upgrade sooner or later... but I really hate to be pushed to upgrade this way. Is not nice. :-(

Thanks for your kind answer, TJJAY :-)

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Thank you for your feedback and we certainly don’t want this change to create additional work for you. Can you explain what you mean when you say that you will have to redo your current platform if you upgrade to SmartDeploy 2.0?  Also, is there a reason that your organization wants to use an older version of the product?

We chose to make this change based on a number of reasons. Downloading Platform Packs within the product is faster because you save a trip to the website, and fewer than 20% of Platform Pack downloads were taking place on the website. This was a strategic decision that will allow our team to focus on product improvements and provide excellent support to our valued customers like you. We sent an initial announcement on July 27th to the primary contact of each account, we apologize if you did not receive this. Would you like to be the primary contact for your account?

We always recommend that customers use the latest version of SmartDeploy. Each new release of SmartDeploy includes bug fixes and product improvements. Running older versions of SmartDeploy can put you at risk of experiencing issues that have already been resolved in newer builds. Additionally, if you were to run into an issue, we would ask you to upgrade to see if that fixed the issue you were experiencing. We’ve also released new features, including zero-touch remote computer imaging and the answer file wizard which makes using SmartDeploy even faster and easier; using an older version may actually be taking more time.

Best regards,

SmartDeploy Support

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Hi Support,

As you know, SmartDeploy version v1.1.4000 added support for UEFI and forced to use FAT32 filesystem in the USB drives instead of NTFS. Our company has several small sites across the UK, Denmark and Norway; we are currently using USB drives for offline deployment and distribute platform updates using a script that makes a diff comparison against a master repository and copies only the changed files. Changing to FAT32 would imply to reformat all the drives: that would be easy on those sites that have an onsite technician, but in the smallest sites the platform work is done by the office manager, who does not have a technical profile. That's why we're still using version 1.1.3010. And, as we haven't had any issue with this version, we really haven't had the need to upgrade it… you know, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Anyway, if I recall correctly (and please confirm), latest version 2.0.2010 does not require to format the USB drives with FAT32, so we could keep using NTFS formatted USB drives as long as we don't need support for UEFI boot yet. Is this correct? That would make it easier for us to upgrade...

The primary contact for our account is the responsible for purchases, he should remain as the primary contact. Maybe those announcements should be sent also to all the contacts in an account. Could it be possible to have an administrative contact for account related issues and also a technical contact for this kind of technical announcements? That would be great!

Thanks in advance and best regards,
-- Javier Llorente

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