OCT

[Mr. Hardware]

Can we atleast have this available for download ?

----------------
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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...69539b8b1aa4&dg=microsoft.public.office.setup

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

The OCT is built into the Setup.exe program of Office 2007, rather than being a separate download. It is only available for
Enterprise (corporate) editions of Office 2007.

What were you trying to accomplish with Office 2007? There are, in some cases, methods to duplicate the Office Customization Tool
(OCT) for some functions.

===========
Can we atleast have this available for download ? <<

--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Garth]

They will probably have to make it available for download as it's pretty
buggy in it's current state, if they don't supply an update there are going
to be a lot of disgruntled sysadmins

 

[Mr. Hardware]

Bob just trying to knock out some of the porcess. i know about creating a
custom XML in the productWW. folder just wanted to get it done. I perfer have
the Excel file for the GPO's RIGHT NOW! if I had to choose.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Garth,

The OCT is built into the Setup.exe of the Office 2007 apps and works with files in the \Admin folder that are included in the
Enterprise licensed versions. It's not available for non Enterprise/Volume license Office 2007 products.

What specific issues are you seeing problems in using it?
What version of Windows and Office 2007 edition are you using an Office 2007 volume license key?

===================
They will probably have to make it available for download as it's pretty buggy in it's current state, if they don't supply an update
there are going to be a lot of disgruntled sysadmins<<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Mr. Hardware]

Bob pls forgive for not being clear. I just don't have it. And was hoping it
could become available for D/L. I think it kinda sux's that WE (partners and
the apprpreate) don't have it. For 2003 ver. I made several transforms, and
others. That, would speed up my small deployments (spc. SBS+5-25). But do
(mentally) recreate a cfg xml makes me pout. When the OCT is yes/no. That's
all. WAIK and OPK dont sute this method verry well. Those are related to
in-house Admin, and completed machines.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

If you have an Enterprise version of Office 2007 (and the volume license key) and create a network Installation point (a CD image if
from an Office CD, or from an extract of Office 2007 from a download image) then running Setup.exe /Admin
will start the Office 2007 Customization Tool (OCT).
It is not available for OEM or retail products.

For additional information on using the Office Customization Tool the Office 2007 Resource Kit may be of help:
http://microsoft.com/office/ork

The OCT does not support GPO deployments, as it creates .MSP (installer patch files) for customization and the MS Installer doesn't
support .MSP files with that method.

===================
Bob pls forgive for not being clear. I just don't have it. And was hoping it
could become available for D/L. I think it kinda sux's that WE (partners and
the apprpreate) don't have it. For 2003 ver. I made several transforms, and
others. That, would speed up my small deployments (spc. SBS+5-25). But do
(mentally) recreate a cfg xml makes me pout. When the OCT is yes/no. That's
all. WAIK and OPK dont sute this method verry well. Those are related to
in-house Admin, and completed machines.>>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Mr. Hardware]

Nope just the MAPS ver.

 

[Garth]

Hi Bob

Yes, it would be great if you can answe my questions, we have poured many
hours into testing the OCT. Here's a few of the issues we are having which I
haven't received a reply to:

----------------------
We have set up an MSP file using the OCT tool. When a user runs Outlook for
the first time they are confronted with 3 messages (I wish you could paste
here!).

The first has the heading "Welcome to the 2007 Microsoft Office System" -
"Privacy Options". There are 3 tick boxes here and the first, "Get online
Help" is ticked by default. We want to change this default and not have the
message come up.

The second has the heading "Microsoft Office Outlook" and says
Windows Desktop Search is not currently installed or not up to date. Outlook
will not be able to provide fast search results when using the new Instant
Search functionality unless this Windows component is installed. Please
contact your administrator." There is a tick box to "Do not show this
message again". We would like it to not show this message at all. A note
to this, using OCT we have set "Prevent installation prompts when Windows
Desktop Search component is not present" to "Enabled" under "Features -
Modify user settings - Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 - Tools | Options... -
Preferences - Search Options".

The third also has the heading "Microsoft Office Outlook" and says
"Outlook, Windows Explorer, and other applications save lists of RSS Feeds
that you subscribe to. The Common Feed List in Microsoft Windows maintains
one synchronised list of RSS Feeds. Do you want your RSS Feeds in Outlook to
be synchronized with the Common Feed List?" The default is "Yes". We would
like to have it not come up with this one too and just set the "Sync RSS
Feeds to the Common Feed List" option in "Tools - Options - Other - Advanced
Options..." to ticked. This option is not available in the OCT.

Anyone have any ideas how we can achieve these things?

-----------------------
When we rolled out Office 2003 using a transform file created with the Custom
Installation Wizard we were able to add shortcuts for users to the Quick
Launch toolbar, so all users have a Word and Excel shortcut there as well as
the one that gets put there on the first run of Outlook without being asked
on the first time run.

We are setting up the rollout of Office 2007 and have used OCT to configure
to our liking. The "Setup" and "Features" sections work very nicely. We had
a lot of trouble with the "Outlook" section and in the end went with the
default settings for Outlook as it definitely doesn't work as it's meant to.
The "Configure shortcuts" under "Additional content" doesn't work properly.
You can add shortcuts for Excel and Word like this
Microsoft Office Excel 2007 - [AppDataFolder]\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch - Yes

but they don't install for the user, it quite happily takes out the ones
that were there before but doesn't put in new ones.

Any ideas on how we fix this issue? The users will not be happy to loose
their shortcuts!

 

[Garth]

Sorry Bob, forgot to say, we have Professional Plus on a Select agreement, so
yes, the OCT is included. Testing is being performed on Windows XP and volume
license key. Definitely not impressed with the OCT, things were better, but
still not perfect in the 2003 release, we've invested way too much time in
this.

Regards, Garth

 

[Garth]

I never got any responses from MVPs so I came up with a little work around.
I force a reboot after the install and then in the login script I have it
call a little batch file that does this:
if not exist "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start
Menu\Programs\Microsoft Office 2007\Microsoft Office Word 2007.lnk" goto
EndO12SC
if exist "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Microsoft
Office Word 2007.lnk" goto EndO12SC
copy "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft
Office 2007\Microsoft Office Word 2007.lnk" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch"
copy "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft
Office 2007\Microsoft Office Excel 2007.lnk" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch"

It checks for the Word shortcut's existance in the Start Menu first before
attempting to copy and then that it hasn't already been done. NOTE: We have
forced all the Start Menu shortcuts to appear in a folder called "Microsoft
Office 2007", the default is just "Microsoft Office", so you may need to
change the path on the "if exist". We used a different folder name because we
have retained on old version of Access.

We never got a resolution for the annoying mesages that pop up on the first
run of Outlook. Also, there doesn't appear to be anything you can do about
the OCT Help not working from the network install point other than run it
directly from the cd.

Regards, Garth

Did you ever get a solution for this? We are having the same problem with
the shortcuts.

Greg

Hi Bob

Yes, it would be great if you can answe my questions, we have poured many
hours into testing the OCT. Here's a few of the issues we are having which I
haven't received a reply to:

----------------------
We have set up an MSP file using the OCT tool. When a user runs Outlook for
the first time they are confronted with 3 messages (I wish you could paste
here!).

The first has the heading "Welcome to the 2007 Microsoft Office System" -
"Privacy Options". There are 3 tick boxes here and the first, "Get online
Help" is ticked by default. We want to change this default and not have the
message come up.

The second has the heading "Microsoft Office Outlook" and says
Windows Desktop Search is not currently installed or not up to date. Outlook
will not be able to provide fast search results when using the new Instant
Search functionality unless this Windows component is installed. Please
contact your administrator." There is a tick box to "Do not show this
message again". We would like it to not show this message at all. A note
to this, using OCT we have set "Prevent installation prompts when Windows
Desktop Search component is not present" to "Enabled" under "Features -
Modify user settings - Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 - Tools | Options... -
Preferences - Search Options".

The third also has the heading "Microsoft Office Outlook" and says
"Outlook, Windows Explorer, and other applications save lists of RSS Feeds
that you subscribe to. The Common Feed List in Microsoft Windows maintains
one synchronised list of RSS Feeds. Do you want your RSS Feeds in Outlook to
be synchronized with the Common Feed List?" The default is "Yes". We would
like to have it not come up with this one too and just set the "Sync RSS
Feeds to the Common Feed List" option in "Tools - Options - Other - Advanced
Options..." to ticked. This option is not available in the OCT.

Anyone have any ideas how we can achieve these things?

-----------------------
When we rolled out Office 2003 using a transform file created with the Custom
Installation Wizard we were able to add shortcuts for users to the Quick
Launch toolbar, so all users have a Word and Excel shortcut there as well as
the one that gets put there on the first run of Outlook without being asked
on the first time run.

We are setting up the rollout of Office 2007 and have used OCT to configure
to our liking. The "Setup" and "Features" sections work very nicely. We had
a lot of trouble with the "Outlook" section and in the end went with the
default settings for Outlook as it definitely doesn't work as it's meant to.
The "Configure shortcuts" under "Additional content" doesn't work properly.
You can add shortcuts for Excel and Word like this
Microsoft Office Excel 2007 - [AppDataFolder]\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch - Yes

but they don't install for the user, it quite happily takes out the ones
that were there before but doesn't put in new ones.

Any ideas on how we fix this issue? The users will not be happy to loose
their shortcuts!

Hi Garth,

The OCT is built into the Setup.exe of the Office 2007 apps and works with files in the \Admin folder that are included in the
Enterprise licensed versions. It's not available for non Enterprise/Volume license Office 2007 products.

What specific issues are you seeing problems in using it?
What version of Windows and Office 2007 edition are you using an Office 2007 volume license key?

===================
They will probably have to make it available for download as it's pretty buggy in it's current state, if they don't supply an update
there are going to be a lot of disgruntled sysadmins<<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Greg]

Thanks. I was thinking about scripting something like this, but was going to
do it as part of the install. We use SMS to push it out so I could easily
run the whole thing as a VBScript.

Thanks again,
Greg

I never got any responses from MVPs so I came up with a little work around.
I force a reboot after the install and then in the login script I have it
call a little batch file that does this:
if not exist "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start
Menu\Programs\Microsoft Office 2007\Microsoft Office Word 2007.lnk" goto
EndO12SC
if exist "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Microsoft
Office Word 2007.lnk" goto EndO12SC
copy "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft
Office 2007\Microsoft Office Word 2007.lnk" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch"
copy "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft
Office 2007\Microsoft Office Excel 2007.lnk" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch"

It checks for the Word shortcut's existance in the Start Menu first before
attempting to copy and then that it hasn't already been done. NOTE: We have
forced all the Start Menu shortcuts to appear in a folder called "Microsoft
Office 2007", the default is just "Microsoft Office", so you may need to
change the path on the "if exist". We used a different folder name because we
have retained on old version of Access.

We never got a resolution for the annoying mesages that pop up on the first
run of Outlook. Also, there doesn't appear to be anything you can do about
the OCT Help not working from the network install point other than run it
directly from the cd.

Regards, Garth

Did you ever get a solution for this? We are having the same problem with
the shortcuts.

Greg

Hi Bob

Yes, it would be great if you can answe my questions, we have poured many
hours into testing the OCT. Here's a few of the issues we are having which I
haven't received a reply to:

----------------------
We have set up an MSP file using the OCT tool. When a user runs Outlook for
the first time they are confronted with 3 messages (I wish you could paste
here!).

The first has the heading "Welcome to the 2007 Microsoft Office System" -
"Privacy Options". There are 3 tick boxes here and the first, "Get online
Help" is ticked by default. We want to change this default and not have the
message come up.

The second has the heading "Microsoft Office Outlook" and says
Windows Desktop Search is not currently installed or not up to date. Outlook
will not be able to provide fast search results when using the new Instant
Search functionality unless this Windows component is installed. Please
contact your administrator." There is a tick box to "Do not show this
message again". We would like it to not show this message at all. A note
to this, using OCT we have set "Prevent installation prompts when Windows
Desktop Search component is not present" to "Enabled" under "Features -
Modify user settings - Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 - Tools | Options... -
Preferences - Search Options".

The third also has the heading "Microsoft Office Outlook" and says
"Outlook, Windows Explorer, and other applications save lists of RSS Feeds
that you subscribe to. The Common Feed List in Microsoft Windows maintains
one synchronised list of RSS Feeds. Do you want your RSS Feeds in Outlook to
be synchronized with the Common Feed List?" The default is "Yes". We would
like to have it not come up with this one too and just set the "Sync RSS
Feeds to the Common Feed List" option in "Tools - Options - Other - Advanced
Options..." to ticked. This option is not available in the OCT.

Anyone have any ideas how we can achieve these things?

-----------------------
When we rolled out Office 2003 using a transform file created with the Custom
Installation Wizard we were able to add shortcuts for users to the Quick
Launch toolbar, so all users have a Word and Excel shortcut there as well as
the one that gets put there on the first run of Outlook without being asked
on the first time run.

We are setting up the rollout of Office 2007 and have used OCT to configure
to our liking. The "Setup" and "Features" sections work very nicely. We had
a lot of trouble with the "Outlook" section and in the end went with the
default settings for Outlook as it definitely doesn't work as it's meant to.
The "Configure shortcuts" under "Additional content" doesn't work properly.
You can add shortcuts for Excel and Word like this
Microsoft Office Excel 2007 - [AppDataFolder]\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch - Yes

but they don't install for the user, it quite happily takes out the ones
that were there before but doesn't put in new ones.

Any ideas on how we fix this issue? The users will not be happy to loose
their shortcuts!



:

Hi Garth,

The OCT is built into the Setup.exe of the Office 2007 apps and works with files in the \Admin folder that are included in the
Enterprise licensed versions. It's not available for non Enterprise/Volume license Office 2007 products.

What specific issues are you seeing problems in using it?
What version of Windows and Office 2007 edition are you using an Office 2007 volume license key?

===================
They will probably have to make it available for download as it's pretty buggy in it's current state, if they don't supply an update
there are going to be a lot of disgruntled sysadmins<<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Garth]

Hi Greg, one thing to watch for is that your SMS script will do it for every
user who logs into the machine, not once per machine. The APPDATA
environment variable is user specific. One thing I missed in the below batch
was ":EndO12SC" is the last line, the "goto" won't work otherwise! Probably
irrelevant as you're vbscripting.

If you find a way to stop the messages displaying on first run of Outlook
I'd be very grateful to hear back.

Cheers, Garth

Thanks. I was thinking about scripting something like this, but was going to
do it as part of the install. We use SMS to push it out so I could easily
run the whole thing as a VBScript.

Thanks again,
Greg

I never got any responses from MVPs so I came up with a little work around.
I force a reboot after the install and then in the login script I have it
call a little batch file that does this:
if not exist "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start
Menu\Programs\Microsoft Office 2007\Microsoft Office Word 2007.lnk" goto
EndO12SC
if exist "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Microsoft
Office Word 2007.lnk" goto EndO12SC
copy "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft
Office 2007\Microsoft Office Word 2007.lnk" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch"
copy "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft
Office 2007\Microsoft Office Excel 2007.lnk" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch"

It checks for the Word shortcut's existance in the Start Menu first before
attempting to copy and then that it hasn't already been done. NOTE: We have
forced all the Start Menu shortcuts to appear in a folder called "Microsoft
Office 2007", the default is just "Microsoft Office", so you may need to
change the path on the "if exist". We used a different folder name because we
have retained on old version of Access.

We never got a resolution for the annoying mesages that pop up on the first
run of Outlook. Also, there doesn't appear to be anything you can do about
the OCT Help not working from the network install point other than run it
directly from the cd.

Regards, Garth

Did you ever get a solution for this? We are having the same problem with
the shortcuts.

Greg

:

Hi Bob

Yes, it would be great if you can answe my questions, we have poured many
hours into testing the OCT. Here's a few of the issues we are having which I
haven't received a reply to:

----------------------
We have set up an MSP file using the OCT tool. When a user runs Outlook for
the first time they are confronted with 3 messages (I wish you could paste
here!).

The first has the heading "Welcome to the 2007 Microsoft Office System" -
"Privacy Options". There are 3 tick boxes here and the first, "Get online
Help" is ticked by default. We want to change this default and not have the
message come up.

The second has the heading "Microsoft Office Outlook" and says
Windows Desktop Search is not currently installed or not up to date. Outlook
will not be able to provide fast search results when using the new Instant
Search functionality unless this Windows component is installed. Please
contact your administrator." There is a tick box to "Do not show this
message again". We would like it to not show this message at all. A note
to this, using OCT we have set "Prevent installation prompts when Windows
Desktop Search component is not present" to "Enabled" under "Features -
Modify user settings - Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 - Tools | Options... -
Preferences - Search Options".

The third also has the heading "Microsoft Office Outlook" and says
"Outlook, Windows Explorer, and other applications save lists of RSS Feeds
that you subscribe to. The Common Feed List in Microsoft Windows maintains
one synchronised list of RSS Feeds. Do you want your RSS Feeds in Outlook to
be synchronized with the Common Feed List?" The default is "Yes". We would
like to have it not come up with this one too and just set the "Sync RSS
Feeds to the Common Feed List" option in "Tools - Options - Other - Advanced
Options..." to ticked. This option is not available in the OCT.

Anyone have any ideas how we can achieve these things?

-----------------------
When we rolled out Office 2003 using a transform file created with the Custom
Installation Wizard we were able to add shortcuts for users to the Quick
Launch toolbar, so all users have a Word and Excel shortcut there as well as
the one that gets put there on the first run of Outlook without being asked
on the first time run.

We are setting up the rollout of Office 2007 and have used OCT to configure
to our liking. The "Setup" and "Features" sections work very nicely. We had
a lot of trouble with the "Outlook" section and in the end went with the
default settings for Outlook as it definitely doesn't work as it's meant to.
The "Configure shortcuts" under "Additional content" doesn't work properly.
You can add shortcuts for Excel and Word like this
Microsoft Office Excel 2007 - [AppDataFolder]\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch - Yes

but they don't install for the user, it quite happily takes out the ones
that were there before but doesn't put in new ones.

Any ideas on how we fix this issue? The users will not be happy to loose
their shortcuts!



:

Hi Garth,

The OCT is built into the Setup.exe of the Office 2007 apps and works with files in the \Admin folder that are included in the
Enterprise licensed versions. It's not available for non Enterprise/Volume license Office 2007 products.

What specific issues are you seeing problems in using it?
What version of Windows and Office 2007 edition are you using an Office 2007 volume license key?

===================
They will probably have to make it available for download as it's pretty buggy in it's current state, if they don't supply an update
there are going to be a lot of disgruntled sysadmins<<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Zaap]

Hi Everyone

Please Help

We are trying to migrate to Office 2007 (MS Office 2007 Enterpris
Volume Licensing) in couple of months- created the MSP file using th
OCT, need to have two ways of deployment
1- Network point Installation
2- from a CD or a USB stick
We also want to include SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe and tzmove.exe in th
installation so that they get installed automatically after the offic
2007 get installed


1 – When installing from a Network point (in the OCT I added bot
executables in the add installations and run programs section ) bot
executables starts at the same time and comes up with an error becaus
windows installer can be used by only one program at one time.
How do you fix this? Is there a command that I should put in th
argument section

2- When installing from a CD or USB stick
How can get the OCT/MSP file to install these programs from the CD o
the USB stick with out connecting to any network locations

I appreciate you taking time to read this and Thank you in advance i
you could provide me solutions

Cheers