LaslowNET Technical Rants, HOWTOs, and Writing

Installing a Font via GPO (Server 2003/2008)

I was approached today by a manager requesting that I install the Eco Font on our 60+ workstations. Not being big on manual installations, and definately not wanting to take the 'email the font as an attachment with installation instructions', I opt'ed for the only route that made sense - installation via Group Policy Object!

This process is fairly straight forward, with the only potentially annoying portion being the creation of the actual .msi file to install the font. Sure, you can create batch startup scripts that copy the file to the fonts folder and update the registry, but this is a lot cleaner.

To create the .msi package used to install the font, I grabbed a free copy of WinInstall LE. Unfortunately registration with a non-free (read: Hotmail, Gmail, etc... accounts not accepted) email address is required. I tend to create throw-away accounts (eg, a9s6dfa9@my_domain.com) that I promptly delete afterwords. I get enough spam as it is.

Once downloaded and installed, there isn't that much to do: launch the app, then create a new package by right-clicking on Windows Installer Packages in the top middle and click on New Package. Give it a name and description and you're ready to start. Expand the package you just created, and you'll see a new line item called New Feature. Select it, then change the name and description in the right-hand pane. No other changes required.

Next, expand the feature line that you just renamed, and you'll get another line itm with a GUID (eg, {82B7A2B4-45E8-497A-AFB5-D182960CABF1}) - go ahead and delete it by right-clicking and choosing Delete. Now right-click on your feature and choose Add Files to Feature. Leave the Source line at it's default value, but change the Target line by pressing the browse button ("...").  From the list, select [WindowsFolder], then in both the Long folder path and Short folder path boxes add Fonts, so they read "[WindowsFolder]\Fonts" (without the quotes, of course). Now click OK. All we need to do now is add the file, which can be done by clicking the Add File button directly under the Target box. Browse to find your font and click Open. Now click OK, and you'll see two new GUIDs under your feature.

The last thing we need to do is make this .msi package install without prompting the user. Simply click on the package line (not the feature), and click on the Install Modes tab on the right. Select Install only per machine and check the Show basic user interface only (simple progress and error handling) box.

Now all you need to do is save your package, and we're ready to deploy it.

By default, the .msi packages you create with WinInstall LE are located at \\<Computer Name>\WinInstall\Packages\<Package Name>\ on the computer you created them. Although the permissions on their share are very relaxed, we want the installer package to be in a high-availability location so that we can be sure the GPO we'll create in just a short while will always be able to access it. I suggest copying it to \\<Domain Controller>\SYSVOL\<Domain Name>\scripts. The guarentees that all of the clients will be able to access it.

Now login in to one of your Domain Controllers and fire up Group Policy Management. Create a new GPO and link it to whatever computer groups you may have, then right-click it and choose Edit. We'll be working under the Computer Configuration header - if you're using Server 2008, select Policies, then Software Settings - Server 2003 users just select Software Settings. Now right-click on Software Installation and choose New -> Package. Browse for your .msi package, select it, and choose OK. Selected Assigned, then OK.

You're done! Just allow time for the GPO to propagate through your domain, and the next time your domain-joined systems reboot the font will be installed.