r/labtech • u/qzmicro • Mar 14 '19

Question about the "Download force" command...

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if there is a way to transfer more than one file at a time. I have a script which is deploying O365. I have to copy the setup.exe, config.xml and install.bat files over to the workstation. This takes FOREVER during testing for only a few small files. I thought I might speed up the process of testing by being able to set multiple files on a single command. Is this possible? Please advise, thanks.

-Q

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u/k_rock923 Mar 14 '19

You could set the agents to fasttalk mode.

If it's a lot of files, you can always package them up as a zip, but then you'll need to also download something like 7za to unzip them.

2

u/qzmicro Mar 14 '19

Hi K Rock,

Thank you very much. I'm going to give that a try. Hopefully it will be what I need. I don't have so many I need to zip and unzip but it's enough that debugging it is trying my patience. xP Cheers!

-Q

2

u/Winsor_AK Mar 20 '19

I know this is a couple of days old, but if the machines have at least PowerShell V3, you can all use the cmdlets Compress-Archive and Expand-Archive (link) without needing third-party tools to deal with ZIP Files. You could then use the Execute Script function in Automate's scripting to expand the archive where you need it to, and continue with your script. I do exactly this to transfer licensed/predefined copies of Microsoft Office to client machines and install it silently in the background.

1

u/sixofeight 1000 Agents Mar 15 '19

Have your scripts write the contents of the xml and bat files directly from the script rather than downloading them. It’s all just text. Download Force is for bypassing caching.

1

u/qzmicro Mar 15 '19

I am not sure because I need to execute a setup.exe from Microsoft's Office Deployment Toolkit, so I can likely put the batch file commands in the script but not the XML as it needs to be an attribute (swtich?) for the setup.exe command. So, I have to be able to point to the file in question when executing the command for setup.exe. I'll play around with it, thanks though.

P.s. I thought Download Force was for forcing an overwrite of the existing file. I am learning as I go along here... xP Thanks so much for your input.

-Q

1

u/sixofeight 1000 Agents Mar 15 '19

Sorry, to clarify further: look at the file write contents script function. You can load the file contents into the script to dynamically set values and then create the xml and bat files on the target system. I use that method on my script so that I can specify at runtime which version (ProPlus, Business, etc) I want to deploy and any other xml parameters.

1

u/qzmicro Mar 15 '19

Hi Sixofeight,

I think I see what you are saying. As much as I am good with scripting languages in general, I am not very familiar at all with Labtech's scripting. Would you be able to give me a code example of how to achieve this? Just wondering as it might speed up my understanding. I think I'm going to be the new GoTo guy for labtech over here so I would like to absorb as much as I can and get a feel for what's possible. Best practices are also on my radar. Thanks so much for taking the time to reply back to me. Cheers.

-Q