There is some very interesting things buzzing about with SoftGrid, most of which I cannot talk about, don't you hate it when people say things like that?  I visited Sean McHugh in Denver last week and he is very deep into SoftGrid and has some great plans around it.

On July 12th Microsoft released a KB on how to sequence Office 2007, below are some of the highlights of the article along with a few links for additional information. 

  • Create an .msp file for your particular environment, you can get the customization tool here.
    • During the customization add in the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search\Preferences "PreventIndexingOutlook" dword:00000001.  Interesting that they would add this in, it enabled the classic search for Outlook...see below
    • If you plan to include Project and/or Visio you need to create a separate .msp file.
    • Make sure you install these to the Q drive - Not the C drive, if you don't know what I am talking about then you should review the recommended best practices here.
    • Reimage your sequencing computer.
    • Sequence your .msp's
      • Visio, Project, Office Communicator, Live Meeting, and the XPS.PDF file save add on all need to be installed in the same folder!
      • Do not start Outlook or Groove
    • Create your FB1.
    • After you finish the sequencing delete the following registry values in the Virtual Registry.
      • USER\%SFT_SID%\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\UserInfo
        • UserInitials
        • UserName
    • Modify the virtual registry for the Live Meeting add on if installed (see KB 939796)
    • If you sequenced on XP and have Tablet PC's clear the virtualized flag in the Virtual File System
      • CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES_COMMON\Microsoft Shared\ink
    • Alter the .osd files to enable local interaction to improve the programs interaction with IE.
      • <LOCAL_INTERACTION_ALLOWED>TRUE</LOCAL_INTERACTION_ALLOWED>
  • Some interesting "known issues"
    • The quick launch shortcuts will not work (of course) so users will have to modify them or remove them from the toolbar.
    • The classic search for Outlook is not because Google is going to sue them again but because the new search doesn't currently work in SoftGrid.
    • mailto: links do not work and anything else that launches Outlook.

 

I personally would not recommend sequencing Office and running it virtually, I would prefer to install it as part of BDD, much like AntiVirus, there are certain things I feel should be installed locally instead of virtualized and Office is one of them.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.


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2 Comment(s) 07:03 - Jul 19, 2007



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skatterbrainz :

Has anyone posted a hit-list of what could be considered "good" applications for SG virtualization?  There's lot's of sporadic horror stories of apps that don't play well with SG, but a comprehensive table of apps which are known to work well with it might be useful to those just getting started with SG.  If something like that exists already, please point me to it? TIA :)

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