Application Dependencies in SCCM

A new feature in CM 2012 is the ability to set dependencies on applications. This is something that I have been waiting for and it works really well.

For example this is my deployment for AX 2012 Client.

In this scenario I needed to create 4 different dependencies that would all be installed, this is done by pressing “Add” and then adding a dependency, if you add 2 dependencies under the same group it will be “this OR that” but if you add them in different groups it will be “this AND that”.

You can for example have one group and add different versions of Visual C++ Redistributable if the application does not require the latest version it will check if any of those versions are installed, if any of those versions are installed it will skip it.

If you add 2 dependencies under the same group you can also set priority, if none of the dependencies are installed the application with the highest priority is the first one to be installed, the best way here is to only check “Auto Install” on the application you want to install if the device is not satisfying.

A dependency doesn’t have to be something that the application you are installing requires it can be anything.

I created a bunch of applications in a folder I call “Pre Reqs\Microsoft” with the most common pre requisites like SQL Native Client etc etc, stuff that I can use over and over again.

When you deploy an application that have dependencies linked to it the SCCM Client will check what decencies is already installed, if none are installed it will automatically download them and install.

This also works when doing it via task sequence.

If you check Software Center you will see the number of components it downloads if you have 4 dependencies and 1 is installed it will say downloading 4 components (3 dependencies and the program itself)

One thing to keep in mind is that if a dependency fails to install the whole deployment fails. You can see what dependency failed under deployment monitoring. I had one case where my C++ 2010 was an older version and the deployment failed because a newer version was already installed on the computer.