Step 2: Copy the Contents of the office Product to the
network Installation Point
Unlike previous versions of Office, Office 2007 doesn't let you create an administrative
installation point (the equivalent of Setup /a in Office 2003 or earlier). Instead,
you simply copy the contents of the product's CD-ROM or DVD media directly to
a folder on the network. The result is a compressed distribution.
Microsoft did a great job of simplifying the management of an Office 2007 distribution.
If you're installing other Office 2007 products (e.g., Microsoft Office Visio
2007), you can copy the contents of that CD-ROM or DVD to the distribution folder.
When prompted to overwrite duplicate setup files, click No. The files are shared,
so it will be faster if you skip files that already exist. The resulting distribution
will be smaller than the total combined size of each product's distribution.
Office 2007 has a language-neutral core, meaning that you can easily add languages
by copying the Single Language Packs that you need into your distirbution. Again,
if you're prompted to overwrite duplicate setup files, click No because those
files are also shared. The system will copy only the language-specific files.
When setup.exe runs, it detects the locale of the computer and uses that information
to determine which language to install. When ose.exe copies the distribution
to the local installation source (MSOcache), it copies only the language-neutral
core files and the files for the selected language—it doesn't copy the
files for languages that aren't in use on the system. You don't need to do anything
other than copy the Single Language Packs into your distribution to ensure that
your Japanese users get the Japanese version of Office 2007 and your French
users get the French version.
Step 3: add Updates
Another elegant feature of Office 2007 deployment is the Updates folder, which
is located immediately underneath the root of the Office 2007 distribution.
Setup will automatically apply any .msp files in the Updates folder, so you
can add Office 2007 patches and updates—including security updates—to
the Updates folder, and they'll be applied during product installation, resulting
in an initial configuration that's as secure and up-to-date as possible. So,
if your organization is deploying security updates and patches, such as the
latest Microsoft Office Outlook Junk E-mail Filter or the latest fixes for the
most recently discovered vulnerabilities, just add the .msp files that you've
obtained (e.g., from Microsoft Update) to the Updates folder in your distribution.
Step 4: Customize office 2007
To customize previous versions of Office, you would use the Custom Installation
Wizard (CIW), a tool that Microsoft distributed as part of the Microsoft
Office 2003 Resource Kit (ORK). The CIW saves customizations as a
transform file (.mst file). Microsoft replaced the CIW with the OCT—which
is part of setup.exe—in Office 2007. Customizations are now stored in
a Setup customization file.
To customize Office 2007, launch setup.exe with the /admin switch. The software
will then prompt you to select which product you want to customize. The product
list is generated dynamically based on the products you've copied to the distribution
folder. Once you've selected the product you want to customize, the OCT will
appear. The OCT, which Figure 1 shows, lets
you configure most of Office 2007's common properties. For an automated deployment
of Office 2007, you should consider at least the following:
• Configure the path to which Office 2007 should be installed on clients,
which is [ProgramFilesFolder]\Microsoft Office, by default. Enter the path in
the Default installation path field on the OCT's Install location
and organization name page. The predefined keyword [ProgramFilesFolder]
represents a client's Program Files path.
- Enter your organization name in the Organization name field on the
OCT's Install location and organization name page.
- Input your 25-character volume license key in the Product key field
on the OCT's Licensing and user interface page. You can't use retail
product CD-ROMs and keys to deploy Office 2007 products to multiple machines,
so retail products don't support preconfigured installations with the OCT.
- Accept the license agreement on the OCT's Licensing and user interface
page by selecting the I accept the terms in the License Agreement check
box. If you enter a product key and configure the Display level to
Basic or None, you're implicitly agreeing to the EULA and the user won't be
prompted to accept the license agreement, regardless of whether you select
the I accept the terms in the License Agreement check box.
You'll also need to configure the Display level on the Licensing
and user interface page, as you see in Figure
1. By default, Setup runs interactively, letting users make choices during
installation. If you're deploying Office across an organization, you'll most
likely want to limit or eliminate user interaction so that setup is automated
and configuration is applied consistently. Your display level choices are as
follows:
- Full (default)—Users will see the normal Office 2007 installation
dialog boxes and will be able to make changes to the default settings you've
specified in the Setup customization file. This display level is useful in
environments in which you want to set defaults and let users modify them.
- Basic—Users will see the Welcome page, a progress bar, and error
messages. If a product key or EULA agreement hasn't been configured in the
customization file, users will be prompted accordingly. Otherwise, users won't
be prompted and won't be able to make any changes to settings.
- None—Setup runs silently, meaning users won't be able to modify the
configuration of Office 2007.
There are three additional options regarding the UI during installation. These
options are available only in the Basic display level. (The Full and None display
levels don't have these options.)
- Completion notice—A message appears when Office 2007 installation
is complete.
- Suppress modal—During installation with the Full display level,
all errors are reported. With display levels Basic or None, this option prevents
error messages and other dialog boxes from appearing and interrupting installation,
although any errors will still be logged for postmortem failure analysis.
- No cancel—This option removes the user's ability to cancel
installation by clicking the X in the corner of the installation window during
installation with the Full or Basic display level.
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