Office 2007 Deploy GPO and upgrade

[Ken Cheney]

We currently run AD on a windows 2003 network.

We have OUs that contain pcs running Office 2003 with custome MSTs. That
way of deploying office seemed so much cleaner.

I have been reading for days it seems on how to deploy office.

I created an MSP file that is in my updates folder according to setup.exe
/admin. That works great if you run setup. But from what I read if you
deploy Office it uses a config.xml file. I am ok putting the product key in
there but I have other transformations I want to do as follows:
1. Make Outlook be able to use Outlook Anywhere
2. Make Word and Excel default to save in 2003 version

I think I am missing something but I dont know what it is. Do you deploy
using the msi (with a config.xml)and then use .adm files to modifiy the
Office installation? Is there some way to deploy then modify the install
using the .msp file I made?
Thanks

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Ken,

The Office 2007 architecture uses multiple .MSI files. For customizing,
if you're going to use GPO deployment then (a) the .MSP customization files aren't used and (b) you can use scripting/batch files
and a modified Config.xml to deploy (the GPO approach has a few limitations on methods).

If you're not going to use GPO this time you can use a combination of product updates (.msp files from Microsoft) and your
customiation files (.msp files you create)

The .ADM policies can be applied and deployed with either approach.

Are you going to update over 2003, or are these new deployments/images?

==============
We currently run AD on a windows 2003 network.

We have OUs that contain pcs running Office 2003 with custome MSTs. That
way of deploying office seemed so much cleaner.

I have been reading for days it seems on how to deploy office.

I created an MSP file that is in my updates folder according to setup.exe
/admin. That works great if you run setup. But from what I read if you
deploy Office it uses a config.xml file. I am ok putting the product key in
there but I have other transformations I want to do as follows:
1. Make Outlook be able to use Outlook Anywhere
2. Make Word and Excel default to save in 2003 version

I think I am missing something but I dont know what it is. Do you deploy
using the msi (with a config.xml)and then use .adm files to modifiy the
Office installation? Is there some way to deploy then modify the install
using the .msp file I made?
Thanks <<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Ken Cheney]

Most clients already have 2003 on them, but there will be some new installs
as well.

I have been doing a ton of reading on this topic and it seems like using GPO
is the least desireable way to implement Office 2007. SMS being the most
desired. I dont have SMS.

I think what I am going to do is just put setup with my MSP in everyones
login script and let it deploy that way.

One of my key goals is to set up Outlook Anywhere for all clients running
Outlook. That doesnt seem like an option in the ADM files nor in the
config.xml files. Or did I just miss it?

Ken