I am currently in the process of creating my first Windows 7 Enterprise Image for Light Touch Deployment via Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) and Windows Deployment Services (more on this at a later date) and am currently at the stage of organising my client applications for deployment. Office 2007 is on the top of my list and in today’s post I will show you how you can incorporate Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 in the single installation also referred to as slipstreaming and in the second part of this post discuss how you can further customize an installation of Office 2007 via the Office Customization Tool (OCT).
In Office 2007, Microsoft has provided you with the ability to slip stream service packs and updates via the “Updates” folder located in the installation media or the distribution point that you create. That means that the installation will always look in the updates folder and automatically install these automatically as part of the initial installation process. This is useful in situations like the one above where you are creating a new Windows Image for deployment and you want to expedite the installation process removing the need to rely on Microsoft Updates for service pack installations.
So let’s begin by creating a folder in a shared location (your distribution point) and copy the contents of the Office 2007 media to this location. In my case I will create a folder called Office2007.
\\SERVER\SHARE\Office2007 In my case I have mapped this file share to the letter M for later reference.
We now need to download the latest service pack available for Office. At the time of this post, Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 is the latest and can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Centre via the following link. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b444bf18-79ea-46c6-8a81-9db49b4ab6e5&displaylang=en
You will notice that the file downloaded is an exe file “office2007sp2-kb953195-fullfile-en-us.exe” which we will need to extract in order to retrieve the msp files that are needed for the “Updates” folder that is located in our distribution point.
In order to extract the files, run the following command from command prompt; In my example I have saved the executable to the root of M.
M:\office2007sp2-kb953195-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract:”M:\Office2007\Updates”
The following screen will appear. Accept the Microsoft Software License Terms and then click on Continue.
File extraction will now proceed.
Once the file have been extracted, you will receive the below completion notice. Click OK to acknowledge.
Upon completion the msp files will be listed below as follows.
Now that our distribution share contains the latest updates, let’s now shift our focus to the Office Customization Tool which is available to IT Professionals and Volume Licensing customers providing you with the ability to further customize the installation of Office 2007 by creating a custom msp file that can be deployed as part of the initial deployment, or at a later date if making minor modifications to an existing installation.
The OCT is invoked by typing the following command from the Office 2007 media;
setup.exe /admin
The following window will be displayed as follows;
We will create a new setup customization file so select the first option and then click OK.
You will now proceed and make any modifications that are necessary for your deployment. Such modifications may include but are not limited to;
Entering your Organization name under “Install location and organization name”
Entering your Volume License Key under “Licensing and user Interface”
Creating a default Outlook profile for your user under “Outlook profile”
e.g. Modifying the “Install location and organization name” parameter
Once you have entered your modifications, you will need to save the MSP file that you will then copy across to include in the updates folder which also includes the service pack 2 msp’s that we extracted earlier.
More details on the OCT for Office 2007 can be found in the following Microsoft TechNet Link; http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179097.aspx
We are almost done. We are now ready to deploy Office 2007 to all our computers from our single distribution point that includes the latest service packs, updates and modifications.
My preferred method in deploying Office 2007 is through Group Policy computer start-up scripts which is explained in quite a bit of detail in the following Microsoft TechNet Link; http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179134.aspx There are notable advantages in deploying Office 2007 via start-up scripts as opposed to the traditional Group Policy Software Installation method with the main advantage in being able to utilise the updates folder that we created and slip stream all updates and modifications in the single installation. This cannot be done via Group Policy Software Installation as noted in the following Microsoft TechNet Link; http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179214.aspx
Microsoft provides you with the following example script for deploying Office 2007 which you will then assign to Group Policy start-up scripts within your specific Group Policy Object.
setlocal
REM *********************************************************************REM Environment customization begins here. Modify variables below.REM *********************************************************************
REM Get ProductName from the Office product's core Setup.xml file.set ProductName=Enterprise
REM Set DeployServer to a network-accessible location containing the Office source files.set DeployServer=\\server\share\Office12
REM Set ConfigFile to the configuration file to be used for deployment REM (required)set ConfigFile=\\server\share\Office12\Enterprise.WW\config.xml
REM Set LogLocation to a central directory to collect log files.set LogLocation=\\server\share\Office12Logs
REM *********************************************************************REM Deployment code begins here. Do not modify anything below this line.REM *********************************************************************
IF NOT "%ProgramFiles(x86)%"=="" SET WOW6432NODE=WOW6432NODE\
reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\%WOW6432NODE%Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\%ProductName%if %errorlevel%==1 (goto DeployOffice) else (goto End)
REM If 1 returned, the product was not found. Run setup here.: DeployOfficestart /wait %DeployServer%\setup.exe /config %ConfigFile%echo %date% %time% Setup ended with error code %errorlevel%. >> %LogLocation%\%computername%.txt
REM If 0 or other was returned, the product was found or another error occurred. Do nothing.:End
Endlocal
We are now ready to deploy Microsoft Office 2007.
