This is a weird one. When I go into the Group Policy Management console, none of my Software installation packages are shown when looking at the "Settings" tab:
However, when I go in to edit the Group Policy, all of my installation packages are there:
I noticed it because I'm seeing some strange activity when testing my latest installation packages. My test Windows XP client recently reinstalled all of its assigned packages, even though I made no changes to the machine or the policy. Worse yet, my Windows 7 clients don't seem to be installing any packages at all.
When I run "gpresult /r" on the client machines, it shows they are members of the required security groups needed to get the respective software updates, and it also shows that the relevant Group Policy is being applied. Same if I run Group Policy Modeling in the GP Mgmt Console (policy is being applied). However, if I run rsop.msc on the target machine, it does not list any software installation packages under "Software Settings" even though several have already been installed in the past.
I recreated a test GP and added a single installation package. After applying the policy and restarting, the installation package installs normally. Also, the installation package shows in the "Settings" tab when looking in the GPMC. I suppose I could recreate all of my installation packages in a new GP, but would be nice to fix the existing GP instead.
UPDATE:
I went ahead and created a new GP, added in all of my application packages again, and verified that they all installed on a test machine. HOWEVER - About 30 minutes or so after creating the new GP and adding all of the apps, THE APPS ARE ALL GONE AGAIN WHEN LOOKING IN THE SETTINGS TAB IN GPMC! And the apps, once again, are no longer installing on any workstations. However, same as before, when I go in to edit the new GP, all of the apps that I just added are listed there. What in the hell is going on?
All I can think that has changed is I just started using GPMC on a Windows 8 machine in the last few weeks...could that be the source of my problem?
ANOTHER UPDATE:
I went into GPMC on my Server 2008 machine instead, added a single test application back into my new GP, and afterwards all of the apps magically appeared again under the "Settings" tab in GPMC. In addition, my test workstation reinstalled all of the managed apps as if they had just all been added to the GP. Something fishy is going on here and I'm suspecting my Windows 8 machine. I'm going to stay out of GPMC on my Windows 8 machine and watch what happens. This copy of Windows 8 is from the TechNet"Subscriber Downloads" repository (version 6.2.9200.0).
Shaun