In November 2006, Microsoft released the latest version of its Office productivity
suite, the Microsoft Office 2007 system. Office 2007 boasts an entirely redesigned
and significantly improved UI, as well as a host of client- and server-side
functionality changes that offer real business value to customers who are ready
to invest their resources into implementing and leveraging Office 2007's new
features. However, Office 2007's deployment is very different from that of previous
Office versions, and many customers won't be able to use the processes and tools
that they've used in the past to deploy Office. If you're considering unleashing
Office 2007 in your environment, you need to know how to prepare an installation
that's configured to the specifications of your organization, and what your
options are for deploying Office 2007 to your client computers.
The Big Picture
Unlike previous versions of Office, which you could install by using either
setup.exe or the single behemoth Microsoft Windows Installer package (.msi file),
Office 2007 is installed using individual .msi files for each application, driven
by an .msi file for the product (e.g., Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, Office
Professional 2007), which is driven by setup .exe. With a few exceptions, you
can't install an Office 2007 application by launching the .msi file with standard
Windows Installer switches. Instead, you have to launch setup.exe manually or
by using an automated software-installation mechanism such as Microsoft Systems
Management Server (SMS).
You can store setup.exe, the .msi files, and all other files related to the
Office 2007 installation on the product's CD-ROM or DVD media, or in a shared
folder on your network, which Microsoft now refers to as a network installation
point. I'll refer to the product's CD-ROM or DVD media or the network installation
point as your distribution source. One of the first things setup .exe does is
launch the Office Source Engine (ose .exe), which copies the files from the
distribution source to a cache (called the local installation source) on the
disk on which you're installing Office 2007. By default, this local installation
source is C:\MSOCache\All Users. Then, Setup launches Windows Installer, which
uses the locally cached files to install Office 2007.
In previous Office versions, the local installation source was optional. However,
to install Office 2007, you're required to have one—a nice feature because
when it comes time to update or repair Office 2007, you'll need the local installation
source to do so. The local cache is resilient: If it's corrupted or deleted
(which is difficult to do, particularly for nonadministrative users), it will
be rebuilt the next time the distribution source is available. Note that the
size of the local installation source (Office Enterprise 2007 is approximately
530MB) is included in Microsoft's disk-space requirements for Office 2007 products.
You can use the Office Customization
Tool (OCT) to create a Setup customization
file (.msp file). During installation, setup.exe
applies settings in the Setup customization file,
as well as all Office 2007 patches and updates.
Setup also uses an XML file, config.xml, to
determine its behavior. You can use this file to
customize many of Office 2007's setup properties. However, to configure these properties,
you should instead use the Setup customization file, which offers greater functionality
and flexibility, as you'll see as we explore the
OCT, Setup customization files, patches and
updates, and config.xml in more detail.
Now that I've introduced some of Office
2007's fundamental processes and terms, we
can begin configuring it for deployment.
Step 1: Create a network Installation Point
In an enterprise setting, a network installation point is a desirable location
for installation files because it lets you centrally manage the customization,
distribution, and deployment of Office 2007. Even if you're using CD-ROMs or
DVDs to deploy Office 2007, you'll want to consider creating a network installation
point so that you can perform all customizations, then burn the resulting contents
of the network installation point to a custom CD-ROM or DVD.
To create a network installation point, you first need to create a folder that's
accessible to users who will be installing Office 2007. This folder can be a
shared folder or a folder within a share. You should apply least-privilege permissions
to make read access available to users. For example, you could create a security
group called Office 2007 Installation with Read & Execute permissions to
the distribution folder.
In large or distributed organizations, it's
wise to maintain several network installation
points that contain the Office 2007 distribution. You can synchronize network installation points by using a variety of replication
technologies, such as File Replication Service
(FRS), DFS Replication (DFSR), Robocopy, or
Double-Take.
Whether you have one or multiple network installation points, I recommend configuring
access to your Office distribution(s) by using Microsoft's DFS rather than server-based
Universal Naming Conventions (UNCs), such as \\server\Software\Microsoft\Office2007.
DFS lets you create a virtual folder hierarchy that presents network resources
in a namespace that abstracts the physical location of the resources. For example,
you could create a DFS namespace that would create the folder path \\domain\Software\Office2007,
which is a virtual path representing one or more Office 2007 network installation
points. Because DFS is integrated with Active Directory (AD) and is site aware,
it's a best practice for software distribution. Clients will automatically be
connected to the server that's closest to them: either within your site or in
a nearby site, based on site-link costs.
Try to avoid using spaces in the UNC path to your Office 2007 network installation
point. When issuing commands, such as setup.exe, spaces in paths require you
to surround the path with quotation marks. So, keep the path simple, such as
"\\domain[or server]\path\ Office2007," or spaceless.
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