HOWTO: Deploy Project Web Access 2007 ActiveX controls via SMS

One of our support engineers, Anil Kumar, created the following instructions for using SMS to remotely install these controls.

If you are implementing Project Server 2007, your users will have to download the ActiveX controls before they can view Project Center and Resource Center.  In order to do this, you have to have the rights to perform the installation.  Many corporations have this capability locked down.  The alternative is to use a tool like SMS to deploy the controls to your user's machines.

Deploy Active X controls of Project Server 2007 via SMS

1. Active X controls reside in two .cab files located on your project server site in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\PWA\OBJECTS\1033.
2. You will need the following two .cab files:
• Pjclient.cab
• Pjcintl.cab (in the 1033 sub folder or other language folders)
3. Copy the .cab files and extract to a location on your SMS Server.  This is technically called as "Data Source" in SMS
4. Create a batch file using the following script. For example, you can name the batch file activex.bat

   1:  ================================================================

   2:   

   3:  CLS

   4:   

   5:  XCOPY *.* "%windir%\Downloaded Program Files"\ /q /r /h /y

   6:   

   7:  regsvr32 /s "%windir%\Downloaded Program Files\pj12enuc.dll"

   8:   

   9:  regsvr32 /s "%windir%\Downloaded Program Files"\pjres12c.dll"

  10:   

  11:  regsvr32 /s "%windir%\Downloaded Program Files"\PJPrint12.dll"

  12:   

  13:  regsvr32 /s "%windir%\Downloaded Program Files"\PJTEXTCONV12.dll"

  14:   

  15:  regsvr32 /s "%windir%\Downloaded Program Files"\PJGRID12.ocx"

  16:   

  17:  regsvr32 /s "%windir%\Downloaded Program Files"\PJQUERY12.ocx"

  18:   

  19:  del "%windir%\Downloaded Program Files\pjcintl.cab" /f /q

  20:   

  21:  del "%windir%\Downloaded Program Files\PJClient.cab" /f /q

  22:   

  23:  del "%windir%\Downloaded Program Files\activex.bat" /f /q

  24:   

  25:  EXIT

  26:   

  27:  =================================================================  

  28:   

5. Copy the batch file to the same location as mentioned in Step 3.
6. Create a "Package" and mention "Data Source" as the location we have extracted the files as in steps 3 in SMS Console.
7. Expand the "Package" and select "Program" and point the batch file in SMS console.
8. Create an "Advertisement" and mention the name of the "Package" and "Program" as created in Step 7 in SMS Console.
9. Run the "Advertisement"
10. Once you get the message that it is successful, login to PWA of Project Server 2007 and click on "Resource Center" or "Project center" and you should see the data without prompting you to download Active X controls.

This script is presented as is with no warranty.  Please test in your environment before running broadly.

 UPDATE:  Some of the double quotes were in the wrong place in the example above.  This has been corrected.