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Deploying Office 2007

I just spent 3 days in office 2003 Deployment training and here is what I took out of the 3 days of training. This training isn't offered to everyone so I asked if it was ok to share this info and I was told that everything we received was public knowledge so I hope this helps others out.

Office 2007 installation and deployment notes

First thing to know is that Office 2007 no longer has to use an admin share. Instead you just create a source folder and copy all of the office products and language packs to that folder. Office 2007 is self repairing because it puts a copy of the install on the C drive under the MSOCache folder. So if it needs to do a repair is doesn't need to go out to the network to get the source.

 

Here are the highlights of what I got from the class

 

Creating the source folder

 

  • Office 2007 is language neutral
    • All office Language files and folders get placed in the same directory as the source folders
      • Source folders are
        • Admin
        • Catalog
        • Update
        • Product.WW
        • Language packs are Product.EN-US or Product.FR-FR (ETC)
  • All office source files can be places in the same directory
    • Office
      • Visio
      • OneNote
      • Publisher
      • ETC
        • Note: When you copy other products be sure to choose NOT to over right just add files and folders.
  • Before trying to deploy get the latest Admin tool here

 

Deployment

  • If you want to just deploy the product without tweaking it just edit the Config.xml file located in the Product.WW folder.
    • To edit the XML file simply remove the < !--  and -->  from the line that you want to use.
    • Note: DO NOT EDIT the following as they are protected by Hash MD5 and will not work if altered
      •  Setup.XML
      • Product.XML
      • (XXX)MUI.XML
  • If you want to install Office 2007 with a custom install use the following command
    • Setup.exe /Admin
      • After running the installation wizard save the msp file in the update folder.
    • After creating your MSP just run Setup.exe to install Office
    • Note: if you choose to run the install silently make sure you put an installation PID in or the install will fail
    • Install logs can be found in the %temp% folder
      • Go to Run and type %temp% and it will open the correct folder

 

Repair and other commands

  • To repair an install run C:\MSOCache\Setup.exe /repair (Porduct ID)
  • To get help run C:\MSOCache\Setup.exe /?
  • To extract any updates run native self extractor by running this command
    • Product.exe /extract
    • Save the extracted MSP file to the updates folder. Make sure that you overright any existing files so that you get the latest updates when you do the install.

 

 

I got a lot more out of the class but these are the highlights. If you get a chance to take this class, go for it.

 

Additional notes can be found here

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/cstauffer/archive/2008/04/11/additional-office-deployment-notes.aspx  

Published Thursday, April 10, 2008 3:04 PM by cstauffer
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Comments

# Additional Office deployment notes@ Friday, April 11, 2008 9:08 AM

Here are some additional notes from my original posting for Office Deployment Staging files You can stage

# re: Deploying Office 2007@ Friday, April 11, 2008 9:39 AM

The only thing I would add is to the deployment section about the custom msp :

If you create multiple custom configuration files (maybe different installs for different departments), do not save them all in the Updates folder. Create a new folder in the source directory and save them to it. Then to apply the different custom MSP, just call it on the command line.

Setup.exe /adminfile “<path to custom.msp>”

The design of the updates folder structure is such that you never have to execute patches against your installation sources and get your client versions out of sync with the distribution as with previous Office versions. Just copy office updates into the folder and they will get installed automatically, keeping your new installs up to date all the time. This allows you to use the same distribution consistently for all types of installations and only refresh the DP when you have patches. This also mean that you can use the same package for all different department installations and just reference the custom MSP based on your target in your program.

by CondoPC