How to cancel SCCM distributed software

[guest]

We are running SCCM 2007. We made a mistake to push out an Office 2012 installation to group computers. The installation icon is showing in the system tray and waiting for the users to click to install. We get many phone calls regarding this installation. Is it possible to cancel the installation from the SCCM? If yes, how will you do it?

[guest]

In our case, I will first suggest you remove share permission of Office 2012 installation source file, or remove source files from DPs, so that clients will no longer access the source files, which will help us prevent the installation of Office 2012. Then we can delete the advertisement under software distribution. Please understand that client will not get any advertisement regarding Office 2012 until the next policy refresh, which means in this cycle of policy refresh, some client will already get advertisement of Office 2012.

[guest]

Well, I'm not really sure what your goal is? If your goal is to Stop an advertisement that the clients have already started, you can't.

Since you've already changed the collection which was a target for the advertisement to have no members, no NEW machines will start the advertisement.

Here's a very simplified overview:

Collection--> WHO gets it.

Package--> WHAT do they get.

Program --> HOW does it install

Advertisement--> WHEN does it install

Distribution Points--> WHERE do the install files come from

The WHY? question is usually "because the boss said so". :)

So, to stop an advertisement, you have to change usually the WHO (collection) or the WHEN (the advert). It is, generally, best to do exactly what you did: changed the advertisement target to an empty collection (you did so by changing the collection itself, but you could create a collection that has no members in it). The reason you usually don't want to delete the advertisement is because you'll want to have the reports available for advertisement history reasons--so that you can run those advert reports and see who got the advert; so if there is some uninstall or cleanup you have to do after the "oops", you know who you have to clean up.