Deploy With Intune
Last updated
Last updated
Using Microsoft Intune in combination with Zee Drive’s , organisations can deploy and upgrade Zee Drive in a controlled, automatic, methodical, and traceable manner.
This guide leverages Intune’s support for Win 32 applications and PowerShell scripts to achieve automated deployment and upgrades of Zee Drive.
This guide covers;
Preparing an Intunewin file to package a Zee Drive executable file as an Intune application
Creation of an Intune Win 32 application
Installing Zee Drive automatically with Intune
Activating Zee Drive as a personal computer (an approach)
Activating Zee Drive as a hot desk computer automatically with Intune
Upgrading Zee Drive personal computers automatically with Intune
Upgrading Zee Drive hot desk computers automatically with Intune
Uninstalling Zee Drive automatically with Intune
This guide assumes that you have experience with Intune, administering Zee Drive, PowerShell scripting, Windows administration, Office 365 administration.
Prior to version 65.3 Zee Drive was a 32 bit Windows application and installed to the “c:\Program Files (x86)” folder. Zee Drive since v65.3 is a 64 bit application and installed to the “c:\Program Files” folder.
The remainder of this document refers to the pre-v65.3 version of Zee Drive and therefore shows the installation folder as “c:\Program Files (x86)”.
We recommend creating a simple folder structure as follows for preparing the Intunewin file:
Copy the ZeeDrive.exe executable version into the Input folder.
Create a PowerShell file in the Input folder and name it RemoveZeeDrive.ps1. This PowerShell file will be responsible for removing Zee Drive when uninstalling via Intune.
Edit the PowerShell file and copy in the following command:
Remove-Item -Path "C:\Program Files (x86)\Thinkscape Zee Drive\43.19.0.0" -Recurse
Change the version number in the above PowerShell script, 43.19.0.0, to the version number of the ZeeDrive.exe file that you copied into the Input folder. This PowerShell script will simply delete the Zee Drive program files thereby uninstalling Zee Drive. The version number is comprised of 4 numbers separated by a period. The version number can be found by right clicking the ZeeDrive.exe file and selecting properties then clicking the Details tab:
The Input folder should look like this after the PowerShell script has been created and the ZeeDrive.exe file has been copied into it:
Open up a Windows command prompt and navigate to the folder where the IntuneWinAppUtil.exe file is located which should be in the folder above the Input and Output folders.
Enter the following command into the command prompt and hit the return key:
IntuneWinAppUtil.exe -c .\Input -s ZeeDrive.exe -o .\Output
After the content prep tool has completed an Intunewin file can be found in the Output folder:
The Intunewin file is now ready to import into Intune.
Choose Apps, All apps, then click Add. For the app type choose Windows app (Win32).
Intune will prompt you to select an app package file. Browse for the Intunewin file created from the previous section. Enter the name of the application as “Zee Drive v43.19” where v43.19 is the version of Zee Drive that you packaged in the Intunewin file.
This is important; you will have one application in Intune for each version of Zee Drive. Here is how it should look when you have entered the required information:
The other edit boxes on the “App information” tab are optional in Intune and you can complete those as per your requirements.
Click Next to proceed to the Program tab. Configure the Program tab exactly as per the screenshot below. The install command and uninstall commands have been copied in below this screenshot in text format so that you can copy/paste them into the edit boxes to ensure there are no typos.
Copy and paste this into the Install command edit box:
zeedrive.exe Command=Install
Copy and paste this into The Uninstall command edit box:
powershell.exe -executionpolicy Bypass -file RemoveZeeDrive.ps1
Ensure that Install behaviour is set to System. Set the Device restart behaviour and return codes as per the screenshot above.
Click Review + save to continue to the Requirements tab. For operating system architecture select 32 and 64 bit. For minimum operating system select the first choice in the drop down list.
Click Review + save to continue to the Detection rules tab. Select “Manually configure detection rules” and add a new detection rule. Configure the rule as per the screenshot below:
Where the Path is set to:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Thinkscape Zee Drive\43.19.0.0
But change the version number, 43.19.0.0, to the version number of the ZeeDrive.exe file that you packaged in to the Intunewin file. The version number is comprised of 4 numbers separated by a period.
And the File or folder is set to:
ZeeDrive.exe
Intune can now detect whether this version of Zee Drive is installed or not by the presence of the EXE file in the installation folder.
Save your changes and continue through to the end of the Intune app setup wizard. After completing the wizard, you now have a version of Zee Drive ready to deploy.
When a new version of Zee Drive is released that you plan to deploy, create a new Intune app for it. You will have one Intune app for each Zee Drive release that you deploy. This screenshot from Intune shows there are two Zee Drive apps for two different Zee Drive versions, 43.19 and 43.20:
After creating your new Intune app in the previous section, you are now ready to install it on target devices.
Installation is not the same as activation. Installation will copy program files and drivers necessary for Zee Drive to run, but it does not activate Zee Drive. Activation is a separate process.
Zee Drive requires local administrator privileges to be installed. But Intune takes care of this as we specified that the app install behaviour should be “system”.
To install the Intune app, and therefore Zee Drive, edit the app’s assignment rules to include the groups that you want to target the app for. You may have existing groups to leverage, or, you may want to create a specific group as in our example below where we have a group named after the Zee Drive version:
After saving the changes, Intune will then process the change and install the app on the target devices:
Zee Drive does not support automatic activation as a personal computer. To activate as a personal computer the user will need to run the ZeeDrive.exe executable and follow the wizard to activate using the username + activation code that you provide to them.
In some corporate environments, users do not have local administrator permissions on their computers so they will not simply be able to run the ZeeDrive.exe to activate because the activation process will fail when Zee Drive attempts to install itself.
In these environments, Zee Drive can be pre-installed using Intune as per the previous section.
With Zee Drive pre-installed, it may not be intuitive to the user that needs to activate Zee Drive where the executable is located. To simplify the activation process for users, we suggest using a PowerShell script in conjunction with Intune to create a link on the users’ desktop to the ZeeDrive.exe executable in the program files folder. Zee Drive executables can be found here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Thinkscape Zee Drive\43.19.0.0\ZeeDrive.exe
Where the version number 43.19.0.0 is the version number of Zee Drive installed into that folder. There will be a folder for each version of Zee Drive installed on the computer.
With a link to the ZeeDrive.exe executable on the users’ desktop, an email can then be sent to the users with each of their username + activation code and instructions how to run Zee Drive from their desktop to activate Zee Drive on their computer.
Use the report highlighted below to track which users have activated Zee Drive. You can then use another PowerShell script in conjunction with Intune to remove the link from their desktop to avoid clutter and confusion:
The report will show which computers are activated:
Zee Drive supports automatic activation of hot desk computers via Zee Drive command line. To facilitate this with Intune, we will use a PowerShell script to invoke the Zee Drive command line. Zee Drive will need to be pre-installed first on the computers you plan to activate as hot desk computers so follow section “4 Install the Intune Win 32 Application” on how to install Zee Drive via an Intune Win 32 Application.
Command line activation for hot desk computers must be enabled on Zee Drive. To do this, choose the “Manage hot desk computers and desktop servers” option from the Zee Drive action button:
Then choose the “how to activate Zee Drive on hot desk computers” option:
On the next screen click the “Click here” blue link to enable the command line:
The command line will be enabled and a new blue link will show “how to use the command line”. Click this link. The command line for activating Zee Drive as a hot desk computer will now show. Click the “Copy To Clipboard” button to copy the command line. Make a record of the command line as you will need to reference it later:
The command line will be specific to your subscription. Here is an example of how it may look:
zeedrive.exe Command=ActivateShared Subscription=86896532 ActivationCode=4168803422
Create a new PowerShell file on your desktop and copy/paste the following PowerShell command into the file:
Start-Process -Wait -FilePath "C:\Program Files (x86)\Thinkscape Zee Drive\43.19.0.0\zeedrive.exe" -ArgumentList "Command=ActivateShared Subscription=XXXXXXXX ActivationCode=XXXXXXXXXX"
Edit the command by changing the parts highlighted in yellow above to reflect your settings. The version number, 43.19.0.0, should be changed to the version number of Zee Drive that you want to activate. The command line parameters Subscription and ActivationCode should be changed to the values that were generated when enabling command line support in the previous section.
Save your changes to the PowerShell file.
Click Next. Choose the PowerShell script that you created previously and ensure No is set for “Run this script using the logged in credentials” as the script needs to run as local administrator. The “Script settings” tab should now look like this:
On the Assignments tab, assign this Intune script to the groups that you wish to apply the hot desk activation to. After completing the wizard your script will appear in the scripts list:
You can monitor the progress of the hot desk computer activations from Zee Drive as Intune works its magic running the PowerShell activation script on the targeted computers.
From the Zee Drive administration console, choose the option “Manage hot desk computers and desktop servers” then choose “How to activate Zee Drive on hot desk computers” then click the “View Activation Log” button. The log will show which computers have been activated or had issues during activation:
After a computer has been successfully activated you can remove the device from the group that is assigned to the Intune PowerShell script.
Note: Zee Drive will start up when the next user signs on to the hot desk computer – Zee Drive does not start on activating it as a hot desk computer.
Upgrading a personal computer is a two-step process; first the new version of Zee Drive should be installed on the computer via an Intune app, then, run an Intune PowerShell script to call the Zee Drive command line to perform the upgrade.
Refer to sections Preparing The Intunewin File, Create an Intune Win 32 Application and Install the Intune Win 32 Application for instructions on installing the new version of Zee Drive on to target computers. This must be completed before upgrading.
Zee Drive provides a report through the administration console to check which computers are running older versions of Zee Drive:
By clicking through the blue links you can see which computers are running particular versions of Zee Drive and therefore identify these as candidates for upgrading:
Create a new PowerShell file on your desktop and copy/paste the following PowerShell command into the file:
Start-Process -Wait -FilePath "C:\Program Files (x86)\Thinkscape Zee Drive\43.20.0.0\zeedrive.exe" -ArgumentList "Command=Update"
Edit the command by changing the part highlighted in yellow above to reflect your settings. The version number, 43.20.0.0, should be changed to the version number of Zee Drive that you want to upgrade to (and that is already installed on the computer).
Save your changes to the PowerShell file.
Click Next. Choose the PowerShell script that you created previously and ensure Yes is set for “Run this script using the logged in credentials” as the script needs to run as the logged in user to update their registry. The “Script settings” tab should now look like this:
On the Assignments tab, assign this Intune script to the groups that you wish to apply the upgrade to.
When the upgrade completes, it will not take effect for the user until they sign out of Windows and sign back in again. Use the Zee Drive report “Check which computers are running Zee Drive” to verify when the new version is active and running:
Upgrading a hot desk computer is much the same as upgrading a personal computer. Please refer to section Upgrading Personal Computers to familiarise yourself with the process. When setting up your Intune script for upgrading the hot desk computers, follow the steps from upgrading personal computers but make these two key changes to the Intune script:
The command in the PowerShell script should be changed to the following:
Start-Process -Wait -FilePath "C:\Program Files (x86)\Thinkscape Zee Drive\43.20.0.0\zeedrive.exe" -ArgumentList "Command=UpdateShared"
The difference is highlighted in yellow above. The command has changed from “Update” to “UpdateShared”.
And on the “Script settings” tab in Intune, the “Run this script using the logged on credentials” should be set to “No” because the upgrade must be run with local administrator privileges:
To make sure your script’s purpose is clear in Intune name it “Zee Drive Hot Desk Computer Upgrade v43.20” where v43.20 is the version number that you are upgrading to.
After upgrading a computer to a new version of Zee Drive, you may want to uninstall the old version. Uninstalling Zee Drive will remove the program files folder that Zee Drive creates during installation. The removal is performed by the PowerShell script that is associated with the Intune application. See section Preparing The Intunewin File for more information on the PowerShell script that performs the file deletion.
Only uninstall Zee Drive after a computer has been upgraded to a new version and is shown to be running the new version via the “Check which computers are running Zee Drive” report (available from the Zee Drive administration console). Otherwise, the uninstall will fail because the Zee Drive program files will be locked by the ZeeDrive.exe process running on the computer and Intune will report a failure trying to uninstall the application.
To initiate Intune to perform the uninstall, locate your application in Intune, in this example we will install v43.19 as we have already upgraded computers to v43.20:
Click the app from the above list, then choose Properties and the Edit the assignments. Locate the “Uninstall” assignments and edit as necessary to include the devices/groups that you want to uninstall Zee Drive from.
Save the changes. Intune will then proceed to uninstall Zee Drive from the targeted devices by running the file removal PowerShell script.
Since v65.3 of Zee Drive it is installed to the “C:\Program Files\Thinkscape Zee Drive\[version number]” folder.
Where [version number] is the 4 part version number of Zee Drive e.g. 65.3.0.0
You can detect whether Zee Drive is activated on a computer (i.e. it is set to start up automatically) by checking the following locations dependent upon the mode of activation:
Check under the registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Locate values starting with the name Thinkscape.ZeeDrive.# where # is a number.
An entry indicates an activation of Zee Drive. The value contains the path to where Zee Drive is installed i.e. the version of Zee Drive that is activated.
Check under the registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Locate values starting with the name Thinkscape.ZeeDrive.# where # is a number.
An entry indicates an activation of Zee Drive. The value contains the path to where Zee Drive is installed i.e. the version of Zee Drive that is activated.
Check the Windows Task Scheduler for tasks in the root of the “Task Scheduler Library” folder structure named “Zee Drive - ########” where ######## is the 8 digit ID of the Zee Drive subscription that is activated:
The Actions tab of the Task will show where Zee Drive is installed and hence its active version number:
Intune requires that Win 32 applications (EXE files) are first packaged in to an Intunewin file using the Microsoft Win32 Content Prep Tool. The tool can be downloaded from this link and Microsoft have a guide to the tool here
Sign into the Intune management portal
From Intune () click the Devices option from the left menu, then scripts. Click Add then choose Windows 10. For the script name enter “Zee Drive Activate Hot Desk Computer v43.19” where the version number v43.19 should be changed to the version of Zee Drive that you are activating.
From Intune () click the Devices option from the left menu, then scripts. Click Add then choose Windows 10. For the script name enter “Zee Drive Personal Computer Upgrade v43.20” where the version number v43.20 should be changed to the version of Zee Drive that you are upgrading to.
