Converting campus Chrome users from "user level" install to "system level" install

[Lee Jones]

I want to know how to convert user-level installations of Google Chrome into system-level installations. I need to do this remotely across the entire district.

Our campus has about 2,400 Windows computers with Google Chrome installed with an old version.

We used SCCM 2012 to manage software deployments. That means updating Google Chrome is easy IF it was installed as a system-level installation instead of a user-level install. But because users could install Chrome independently, we now have installations that we cannot manage without having the original person who install it uninstalling it.

Frankly, our users are too busy doing their jobs (I hope) to concern themselves with keep software up-to-date. This problem is only made worse by multi-user computers.

According to this post the desired behavior of Chrome was to install system-level, then fall back to user-level.

So, how do I convert existing user-level Chrome installs to system-level installs?

[PhistucK]

If you install using MSI, does it convert?

☆PhistucK

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[Lee Jones]

Yes, then each local user ends sees two Chrome icons. If you click the local icon, you get a message about the system-level one replacing the local-level one (I don't remember the exact wording).

That only affects the user if they login and if they launch the local install of Chrome. I want to automate this step if possible to cut down on support tickets.

[PhistucK]

Can you launch the local one using group policy and such?

☆PhistucK

[Lee Jones]

The issue is figuring out how to launch the right version. The AppData folder name changes with the version, so a single command won't do it, unless I try to wildcard it with a script to look for all folders and just run chrome.exe as the local account.  Ideally, the user wouldn't have to do anything.

[PhistucK]

What changes? If I recall correctly, chrome.exe is always in the same place. The versioned folder only contains the DLLs and other dynamic resources loaded by chrome.exe, which is irrelevant to you.

☆PhistucK

[Lee Jones]

That's good to know - I'd rather be mistaken and have chrome.exe in the same relative path all the time, that should make running it in the user context relatively easy.

Now I just need to figure out a way to automatically detect when a local install happens so I can drop the system install MSI on top of it.

[PhistucK]

I am not sure it is even possible to install a new user level installation after a system level installation is already installed...

☆PhistucK

[Lee Jones]

Let me clarify - we are not pushing Chrome to all computers by default.

While a user should install from the app catalog, often they will go directly to the web for install, and since they can, they do.

Once we detect that Chrome is out-of-date, I am forcing an update to the latest version for all PCs that have Chrome installed.

But I do not currently have a way of finding and converting local installs which are current. 

[PhistucK]

Why do you let them install it in the first place? Perhaps block that instead.

☆PhistucK

[Lee Jones]

We've considered that, but we either need to do that at the firewall (which wouldn't work for laptops that go off-campus) or a domain policy to restrict write to AppData\Local\Google\Chrome (which contains user data), or try to use administrative templates to restrict this (and we couldn't find one that disabled local installs). In short, it is more work to block it from being installed locally than to apply remediation after the fact.

Do you block it? If you do, how?

[PhistucK]

Perhaps Internet Explorer has some URL filtering features (if you assume they would most likely use that for downloading Chrome). I do not know.

☆PhistucK