Upgrade Adminiistrative Office 2000 to Newer Version

[Faith]

Hi - I'm needing some guidance regarding best way to "quickly" upgrade
several hundred PCs currently running Office 2000. The original Office
deployment was done by installing from an admin installation point to a
workstation image so some are on SP3 and other still on Gold. Environment is
W2K servers, Exchange 2000, mostly W2K workstations with a few XP
workstations. Here are some questions:

1) Should we plan to upgrade to Office XP and not Office 2003 so the users
will not face file major format/compatibility issues? (Note:we are still on
Exchange 2000 but plan to migrate to 2003 in next few months)

2) Do the clients that are still on Office 2000 Gold need to be upgraded
first to SP3 before an upgrade to any new Office version will work?

3) Can we use our current MST files or do we need to build a new one from
scratch?

4) Can we deploy the upgrade with login scripts or GPO without visiting
each PC? What is the best method to automate the deployment?

5) What are the "gottchas" we need to be aware of - like Outlook XP or 2003
running against Exchange 2000?

Thanks for any experience you can share.

 

[Lawrence Garvin \(MVP\)]

Hi - I'm needing some guidance regarding best way to "quickly" upgrade
several hundred PCs currently running Office 2000. The original Office
deployment was done by installing from an admin installation point to a
workstation image so some are on SP3 and other still on Gold. Environment
is
W2K servers, Exchange 2000, mostly W2K workstations with a few XP
workstations. Here are some questions:

1) Should we plan to upgrade to Office XP and not Office 2003 so the
users
will not face file major format/compatibility issues? (Note:we are still
on
Exchange 2000 but plan to migrate to 2003 in next few months)

What "file major format/compatibility issue" do you anticipate?

Aside from that, obtaining 'several hundred copies' of Office XP will be
near impossible. You will be required to purchase Office 2003 licenses,
which, assuming you're using volume licensing, will give you downgrade
rights to Office XP. You'll still need to purchase an Office XP media kit.

However, there's another reality at work here. If you have 'mostly W2K
workstations', that means those systems are getting pretty old. At least
three years old, now, perhaps as much as five. Are you planning to replace
these workstations at any time in the future? If so, you're going to install
Windows XP; it makes better sense to install Office 2003 on those systems,
at that time.

2) Do the clients that are still on Office 2000 Gold need to be upgraded
first to SP3 before an upgrade to any new Office version will work?

The Office 2000 installations that do not have service packs installed -
they will be problematic. They /are/ problematic, merely because of the
current security risks, not to mention the general instability of Office
2000 RTM. You should focus on getting your existing installations PATCHED
before worrying about upgrading them. In fact, the ugprade may require the
installation of the service pack. (I can't recall specifically that it does
or does not.)

3) Can we use our current MST files or do we need to build a new one from
scratch?

You'll need to build a new MST file if you're switching versions, especially
to Office XP/2003, where hundreds of options have been relocated, removed,
added, changed, etc.

4) Can we deploy the upgrade with login scripts or GPO without visiting
each PC? What is the best method to automate the deployment?

Absolutely. This would be the recommended way to deploy Office to 'several
hundred workstations'.

5) What are the "gottchas" we need to be aware of - like Outlook XP or
2003
running against Exchange 2000?

None that I'm aware of -- though you also need to /seriously/ look at
upgrading the Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003, as well as the Windows 2000 to
Windows Server 2003.

So, let me put this in a simple way..... if you were to have a major problem
today in your environment, and needed the help of Microsoft Product Support
Services.... you'd be out of luck, as your entire environment (excepting the
Windows XP workstations -- which need to be at SP2) is now "unsupported" by
Microsoft.

With "several hundred workstations" in your environment, your organization
is big enough to have a budget and a plan in place to ensure that computers
are upgrade/replaced every three years. Now would be a good time to start
pursuing such a policy to prevent this scenario in 2009.