What’s New for Applications and Packages in SCCM 2012?
With the release of SCCM 2012, Microsoft has introduced many new features and made many changes in regards to Applications and Packages as detailed in the list below:
- New Application Model – Applications are new to ConfigMgr 2012. They contain all of the information and content that is required to deploy a piece of software to a ConfigMgr Client.Applications can contain multiple Deployment Types which detail how to install and uninstall the Application on various platforms.
For example, an application could contain one Deployment Type specifying how to install a .MSI for the Application on a Windows PC and different Deployment Type specifying how to install a virtual version of the Application on a mobile device.
- New User Device Affinity – One of the biggest changes in ConfigMgr 2012 compared to previous versions is the focus on user-centric rather than device-centric management. ConfigMgr 2012 includes the User Device Affinity feature that basically allows you to associate a user with one of more devices and specify which device is their primary device (the one they use the most).Then you can configure your Application deployments to say that the .MSI version of the application only gets installed on the user’s Primary Device with the virtual version of the application being installed on all other devices.
- Requirement Rules for Conditional Application Deployment – ConfigMgr 2012 includes Requirement Rules which are basically conditions you can configure that control the installation of an Application. For example, don’t install the Application if the targeted computer has less than a certain amount of memory.
- Global Conditions can be used with any Deployment Type – Global Conditions are new to ConfigMgr 2012 as well. They are similar to Requirements Rules, but the main difference is a Requirement Rule can only use a single Deployment Type whereas Global Conditions can be used with any Deployment Type.
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