Installing the familiar Microsoft Office applications that we use at home, school, and work is fairly simple if you're doing a standard installation on one computer. But when you have complex deployments that involve many machines, you need a tool that can help you customize Office and streamline the installation. The Office 2003 Editions Resource Kit's Custom Installation Wizard (CIW) is just such a tool. Let's look at how you can use the CIW to make some popular and useful Office 2003 customizations. But first, you need to understand a couple of things about Windows Installer.
Windows Installer
As with Office XP and Office 2000, you install Office 2003 through the Windows Installer service. Windows Installer uses two types of files:
- Windows Installer packages (.msi files): The .msi files are databases that associate Office components with Office features and contain all the information you need to install Office.
- Transforms (.mst files): The .mst files are databases that contain modifications you want to make to the installation process. Windows Installer applies these changes to the .msi file before performing the installation. Thus, transforms give you a way to override the default installation and customize Office. You can apply one transform at a time when you perform an installation; transforms have no effect on existing installations.
The key to controlling Office installations is to override the default settings that you want to change. Using a transform is the easiest way to do this, although you can also provide settings from the command line or specify a text .ini file. You can reuse a transform for multiple installations or use the CIW to open it and modify its settings. Typically, you create one transform for each type of installation. For example, if you wanted to deploy Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 now and the rest of Office 2003 later, you'd build two transforms: one that installs just Outlook and another that installs only the other components that your users require.
Office Deployment Types
The Business Desktop Deployment Solution Accelerator (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/techguide/mso/bdd/default.mspx) can guide you through planning and executing your Office deployment. Such comprehensive information is beyond the scope of this article; however, understanding the most common deployment scenarios can help you understand what the CIW can do.
In a combined deployment, you install both Windows XP and Office 2003 on new hardware. You can configure a single machine as a baseline using the OS and Office settings, then use Microsoft Remote Installation Services (RIS) or an imaging tool, such as Symantec's Norton Ghost, to blast the combined Office and OS image to your machines. Typically, you retain the transform so you can use it to build or repair machines in the future.
Another more common--and more complicated--scenario is installing Office on machines that already have an earlier version of Office. In this case, you might want to preserve user settings and data, or you might want to change a few settings. This scenario has two subcases:
- Sometimes you want to remove the older Office version on the target machine and replace it with the new release. You might do this when you don't have any legacy applications that depend on earlier versions or when you need to make a clean start.
- Alternatively, you might want to retain selected older components. If your company has applications that are tested and certified for use with a particular Microsoft Office Access release, for example, you can tell the CIW to install Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, Outlook 2003, and Microsoft Office Word 2003 without touching Access.
A third scenario, called a phased deployment, is increasingly common. In this scenario, you install some Office 2003 applications now and others later. For example, say your company is upgrading to Exchange Server 2003 and wants to take advantage of new features (such as RPC over HTTP connectivity and cached mode) that combined Outlook 2003 and Exchange 2003 installations offer. Exchange client licenses include Outlook licenses, so you can deploy Outlook 2003 even if you haven't deployed Office 2003. Thus, you can use the CIW to build a transform that installs only Outlook; later, you can build a second transform to install some or all of the other Office applications.
Preparing to Use the CIW
Before you can use the CIW, you need to download the ork.exe file from http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2003/tools/boxa03.htm and launch the executable to install the CIW. You can then access the tool by clicking Start, Programs, Program Files, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Tools, Office 2003 Resource Kit. Office 2003 doesn't need to be installed for you to install and use the wizard, although you do need access to an Office 2003 installation source, such as the installation CD-ROM or a network installation point.
Creating an Installation Source
Installation sources are an important transform element. Office (2000 and later) maintains a list of locations in which you've installed Office components. This list tells the Office installation tool (and the self-repair and detect-and-repair features that reinstall damaged or missing components) where to look for the necessary components. To easily deploy Office 2003 on multiple computers, you can create an administrative installation point--a network share that contains a version of Office used as an installation source for individual machines. Users can install Office from the share themselves, or you can create a transform that customizes the installation for them.
To create an administrative installation point, you need a file share with at least 652MB of free space and an Office 2003 installation CD-ROM. Run the Office setup utility (setup.exe) followed by the /a switch. The setup utility will prompt you to specify the share location. Depending on the type of license you have, you might be able to enter the volume license key so that users don't have to enter it themselves.
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