Help Please - How To Make Office Available for New Users at a Workstation???

[Dwight Hutchinson]

Hello all,

We have been trying with no success to integrate Office Professional
Enterprise Edition 2003 to a new WinXP Pro SP1 image (that will be
SysPrepped) and make it so that any user that signs onto the workstation has
a functioning Office without having to do any installation of components.
We are trying to implement Roaming User Profiles with the goal of any user
can sign onto a workstation and have their common environment (i.e.. a
working Office 2003) available.

What happens is Office is available Published (with an MST to install all of
the features locally) from the 2003 domain's Group Policy. The source
workstation image has an installation of Office 2003 from this Group Policy.
Using the User Profiles Manager in Windows XP we copy the build user that
was signed on during the install to Default User...thinking that any user
who signs onto the workstation will get a copy of that profile hence a
working copy of Office 2003...no luck here. The first time they launch an
Office application the Windows Installer puts the user portion of the app
there.

Is there a way to make it so that any user can have a working Office without
having to go through any personal installation???

Thanks in advance!

Dwight Hutchinson

 

[Steven Liu [MSFT]]

Hi Dwight,

The behavior is by design.

You install the Office in one user account. If you logon the computer with
another account and try to launch the Office application, it will launch
the installation to generate the information of the current user.

The best way is to install the Office XP from the network share on the
computer which one you want to create the image with. Then, keep the
network share of the office xp available. When the client start the Office
application, the installation will start and it will access the network
share automatically. After the installation completed, the client will be
able to use the Office XP application. The client will not encounter the
installation again.

Thanks for using Microsoft News Group!

Sincerely,

Steven Liu

Microsoft Online Partner Support

MCSE 2000

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

 

[Dwight Hutchinson]

Steven,

Thanks for your reply!

How do we prevent this behavior and make Office XP or 2003 have the behavior
we're looking for?

We can do this today with Office 2000 and new users don't have to go through
any installation. Users with Roaming User Profiles can simply go to another
workstation with Office 2000 and just work. We really need the current
Office to behave this way or our management will most likely nix upgrading
to the current Office because they will view the upgrade as taking away a
key user feature.

Is there ANY way to not have new users logging onto an XP workstation go
through any Office installtion process?

Thanks in advance!

Dwight Hutchinson

 

[Steven Liu [MSFT]]

Hi Dwight,

Sorry, the behavior is by design. We can't stop it.

I have show you the workaround.

Make a share on one server \\server\officexp. Install the Ofice XP to the
Windows XP from the share. Then, run the sysprep to the Windows XP and
create RIS image.

Then, keep the share available to all users. When the client logon to the
Windows XP and open the Office application for the first time, it will
access teh \\server\officexp to get the installation start. The
installation will finish soon. Then, you will not get the behavior again.
It only happens when the client open the Office application for the first
time.

Thanks for using Microsoft News Group!

Sincerely,

Steven Liu

Microsoft Online Partner Support

MCSE 2000

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

 

[Carley]

You state that this behavior is by design. I am running
into basically the same problem. Our policy is to not
leave a network share open to prevent unauthorized
installations. In order to satisfy both our local
controls and users, I would have to go to each user
workstation and log on each new user to ensure that the
software is correctly installed.

What would be the purpose of designing the software this
way? There has to be a way to get around it.

TIA,

 

[Steven Liu [MSFT]]

Hi Carley,

I feel sorry about this. The installation is used to gather the current
user information and generate some registry information.

If you manually logon to the client, please make sure you logon the client
with the client account. If you logon with your account, and open the
Office application. The system will launch the Office installation
application. If the user logon again and open the Office application for
his first time, the system will launch the Office installation application
again.

Thanks for using Microsoft News Group!

Sincerely,

Steven Liu

Microsoft Online Partner Support

MCSE 2000

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

 

[Carley]

Steven,

I understand what it's doing. I understand that the user
has to be logged on, access the installation point and
complete the installation. I understand that once they
complete the installation that user will never see the
message again.

I have also learned that if the user just clicks "cancel"
until the message doesn't come up anymore. Granted, they
have to do this each time they open an office
application. But this indicates that the
additional "installation" is not required to run the
package.

What registry information does it generate? Why can't I
put in an allusers key or something to indicate that all
users have the same access and no additional user
information is required?

 

[Steven Liu [MSFT]]

Hi Carley,

It will generate many information in the registry.

You can use the Advanced Registry Tracert to compare the registry before
the installation and after the installation.

The tool can be downloaded at:

http://www.elcomsoft.com/art.html

Thanks for using Microsoft News Group!

Sincerely,

Steven Liu

Microsoft Online Partner Support

MCSE 2000

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.