I recently implemented a Lync 2010 server to move away from OCS 2007. I got everything working with my few test clients that were installed manually and was ready to start pushing clients out to the office. I use SCE 2010 to monitor computers, push updates, and push software. I created a Software Deployment Package with the Lync Client .exe and pushed that out to a test computer. The install would hang every time, no failure and no success messages. I would just have to hard kill the computer. Upon doing some research, I realized I should install the client using the .msi file instead of the .exe. So I went and found my .msi of the install and created a new deployment package using that. This time, I got an actual failure. Looking around in the Event Viewer, I found an error stating, "The Lync 2010 client must be installed by using the client executable file." After some more research, I found some documentation saying to install the client using Group Policy. "...use the Group Policy setting for UseMSIForLyncInstallation to allow the .msi to run on client computers." However, Microsoft KB Article 2477965 says the fix for the above error was creating a new DWORD value in Registry called UseMSIForLyncInstallation. I am somewhat new to this, and was unable to find clear documentation on how these seemingly two separate things fixed the issue.
What I came to realize was that I could create a Group Policy Object that would create the DWORD in Registry and give it all the correct settings. Then I was able to successfully deploy the .msi client install using SCE 2010. Hopefully this will help someone who may be having the same issue.
