How to Reset Dismissed "New Software is Available" Notifications for Software Delivery Policies

Products

• Software Management Solution

Issue/Introduction

 

Resolution

Managed Software Delivery (MSD) policies that have the Prompt user when this policy is available option enabled will generate New Software is Available prompts from the task bar of targeted computers when the policies are first received or a user logs on. When the New Software is Available prompt is clicked it opens a New Software is Available window, which lists the MSD policies. Users can then choose to install the software, be reminded later, or dismiss the software and never see prompts from those MSD policies again.

To undo the intended behavior of the Dismiss Task and Dismiss All buttons and force users to see the notifications again upon their next login the dismiss=”1” flags need to be removed for each MSD policy in the C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\notificationlist.xml file. The easiest way to do this is to create a Run Script task that opens that file, replaces all instances of ‘dismiss=”1”’ with ‘dismiss=”0”’, and then saves that file.

Directions:

1. Go to Manage>Jobs and Tasks
2. Right click on any desired folder, then select New>Task
3. In the Create New Task window find and select Run Script
4. Give the task an appropriate name such as “Reset Dismissed Software Notifications”
5. Change Script type: to VBScript
6. Paste the following script in the empty box:

' https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/heyscriptingguy/2005/02/08/how-can-i-find-and-replace-text-in-a-text-file/
' https://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/open-new-software-available-dialog-box-command-line
Const ForReading = 1
Const ForWriting = 2
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile("C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\notificationlist.xml", ForReading)
strText = objFile.ReadAll
objFile.Close
strNewText = Replace(strText, "dismissed=""1""", "dismissed=""0""")
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile("C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\notificationlist.xml", ForWriting)
objFile.WriteLine strNewText
objFile.Close

7. Click Save Changes
8. Click New Schedule, create a schedule with the Repeat every: option enabled and choose a reasonable frequency such as every 1 day
9. Click Add, then create or specify a target consisting of the computers that recieve the MSD policies
10. Click Schedule, then Save Changes