Deploying The Lync 2013 Client With PDQ Deploy

Smaller companies looking to deploy Lync 2013 (or just about any software package for that matter) will likely find deployment/management suites such as SCCM cost-prohibitive.
PDQ Deploy, a free tool by Admin Arsenal, makes it pretty painless to push out applications to multiple machines in bulk. The free version is licensed for personal, government, and commercial users, its just limited to 8 concurrent deployment threads...which is great for smaller shops.

I'll show you how to silently deploy Lync 2013 with PDQ Deploy, and save you some time/money without having to spend thousands on an enterprise suite or having to visit each workstation.

Install Lync 2013 Silently

**Note** This will install the Lync 2013 client in-line with Office 2007/2010. If you are upgrading to Office 2013, you'll need to manually remove the previous Office version as it does not replace the previous version.

Grab the Lync 2013 files

Get your Lync install files from your Volume Licensing Portal and extract the .exe to a network share, for instance: \\Server1\Deploy\Lync 2013 x64 Client and \\Server1\Deploy\Lync 2013 x86 Client

**Note** You have to separate the install files according to architecture; 32-bit in one folder, 64-bit in another folder.

Office Customization Tool Setup

Fire up an Elevated command prompt, then browse to the Lync client directory of the architecture you need to deploy, and run the setup command with the /admin switch:

\\Server1\Deploy\Lync 2013 x64 Client\setup.exe /admin

-or-

\\Server1\Deploy\Lync 2013 x86 Client\setup.exe /admin

This will launch the Office Customization Tool (OCT)

On the left pane, choose Additional network resources

Include the full path of the Lync 2013 setup file location










**Note** The PDQ Service Account will need access to this location

Click OK and you'll see it listed

Under Licensing and user interface in the left pane, either leave the KMS option selected or choose Enter another product key, if you use MAK activation, and tick the I Accept the terms… box.

Change display level to None, Uncheck Completion notice, Check Suppress modal

Set the other options according to your deployment (there's a bunch of things you can set up such as registry keys, start-up features, custom features, etc. but I won't go over them in this guide)

Once completed, click on File then Save.

Save it to the root of the Lync 2013 Client install directory as filename: setup.msp

Close the OCT, and confirm the exit.

Batch File Setup

In Notepad paste the following lines:

net use I: \\Server1\Deploy\Lync 2013 x64 Client

I:

cd\

setup.exe /adminfile "I:\setup.msp"

**Note** I'm using I:\ as a drive letter which the PDQ Service Account has access to, you can use whichever letter you have available. In the first line, use the full path of the Lync 2013 client files location.

Exit notepad, and Save As setup.bat in the Lync 2013 client setup folder
PDQ Deploy

In PDQ Deploy, Create a new Package

Name: Lync 2013 x64 Push (you can name it what you like)

Step Title: Deploy (you can name it what you like)

Install File: Enter the full UNC path of your batch file (setup.bat)

Save, Exit, and run your deployment package.

I use DameWare to watch the remote processes to make sure it pushed to workstations correctly, but you can use whatever tool you have at your disposal.
You'll see the PDQ Runner process, then the setup.exe process, then a bunch of msiexecs, along with a mse0000 process. Once the mse0000 is gone, the install is complete.

**Note** Since there is no "successful exit code" for Lync being installed from a batch file, PDQ Deploy will report a "Deployment Failed, Error Code: 1" but its a misnomer, it will be installed just fine!