How To Deploy Internet Explorer 11 From SCCM 2007 / 2012

Need to deploy Internet Explorer 11 from SCCM 2012? This method also works for deploying Internet Explorer 11 from SCCM 2007 too.

The crux of the deployment of IE 11 via SCCM is as follows:

• In order to deploy IE 11 so that it’s instantly usable in your environment, you must deploy the prerequisites, reboot, then deploy IE 11 itself, then reboot, then patch it so that Enterprise Mode works (KB3003057)
• Two of the 6 prerequisite updates are not available in SCCM (WSUS)
• The manually downloaded prerequisite patches are not exe’s or MSI’s so you can’t easily deploy them and it’s not wise to deploy them as a repackaged application because the Windows update manager on the client might not know that it has those patches installed (this can effect future patching).

So to get around this, you have to deploy IE 11 as part of a task sequence. Here’s how to do that:

1. First download the prerequisite updates
2. Store them in a folder in a network share that you users can get to (the folder that you use to deploy software from SCCM)
3. Next create a text file called install.vbs in that directory
4. Edit install.vbs and paste the following code into it (The code basically iterates through every MSU file and installs them sequentially):

   Dim objfso, objShell
Dim folder, files, sFolder, folderidx, Iretval, return

   Set objfso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
   Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

   sFolder = left(WScript.ScriptFullName,(Len(WScript.ScriptFullName))-(len(WScript.ScriptName)))

   Set folder = objfso.GetFolder(sFolder)
   Set files = folder.Files

   For each folderIdx In files
If Ucase(Right(folderIdx.name,3)) = "MSU" then
wscript.echo "c:\windows\system32\wusa.exe """ & sfolder & folderidx.name & """ /quiet /norestart"
iretval=objShell.Run ("c:\windows\system32\wusa.exe """ & sfolder & folderidx.name & """ /quiet /norestart", 1, True)
End If
Next

5. Create an SCCM software deployment package and program, pointing to install.vbs, you may wish to apply this to a specific collection
6. Create an update collection (pointing to the same collection in the previous step) to install the IE 11 update and updates to IE 11 (KB3003057 is required to enable Enterprise Mode, which you definitely need). If you only need to patch to a certain level and those KB’s have already been superseded, then you can create a package / program with those updates as you did for the IE 11 prerequisites
7. Next create a task sequence with the following steps, and apply the task sequence to the collection you created:

   1. Install the prerequisites program
   2. Reboot
   3. Install all available updates to the client
   4. Reboot
   5. Install package with specific updates that have been superseded (Optional)
   6. Reboot (Optional)

Adding clients to the collection should then deploy Internet Explorer 11 to them. You may get lots of reboots if there are other software updates outstanding on that machine. Note that you also need to set up and test the GPO(s) for IE 11 prior to deployment, and of course have tested the corporate websites to ensure that they work. You may need to use a mix of Compatibility Mode and Enterprise Mode to get all the websites working.