You down with PDQ? (ya you know me)

Anyone working in the EUC field has probably pulled out some or ALL of their hair when trying to deploy software via Microsoft’s dreaded SCCM tool

What if I told you there was a better way? That’s assuming of course, you’ve not heard of PDQ Deploy

https://www.pdq.com/pdq-deploy/

I’m late to the PDQ game! I had read about it via twitter/slack for months, but only got a chance try it out on my beloved home lab last weekend

There are two versions:

1. The free version  can run forever, but has some limitations. For me, having to enable the admin share / admin account on my Win 10 assets was a show-stopper for me.
2. So ! I immediately activated the 14 day trial on the star ship enterprise version. Once I activated the enterprise trial on my existing PDQ deploy install, I was good to go after amending the “TARGET SERVICE” location option as follows:

To start, I downloaded a few common packages: Google Chrome v 81.x, Citrix WorksSpace App 2003 and a few other common apps

The app has intelligence to recognize when new versions are available, they are indicated under the APPROVALS section. All you need to do is approve the updates and your library will update itself on your PDQ Deploy server, you’re then able to deploy / re-deploy to your targets. For instance, as I was writing this blog and collecting screenshots, I got approval requests for a new version of Google Chrome and Slack, done/done!

Deployment is where PDQ Deploy really shines , especially against Citrix MCS / PVS master images.

You select a package, right click and choose DEPLOY ONCE, put in your target asset and let ‘er rip!

Assuming you’ve followed the steps to open the required firewall rules on the target assets, you should have your software deployed within minutes or even seconds if it’s a small package and you’ve got a fast connection from source > target

In summary

• PDQ Deploy is an incredible tool, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for a painless means to deploy new or updated software. 
• Enterprise licenses are just $500 USD which is an absolute bargain when you look @ the time savings against SCCM troubleshooting ; 

Because an SCCM deployment rarely works the first time you try it , right?