Office upgrade and GPO

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Jack,

I absolutly agree that software should not be deploy using GPO in the user
container especially sth like Office.
OK.

If you refer to my posting

"I would like to deploy OFFICE 2k3 to all of them. I am
optioning to go to a third party software distribution tools"

I avoid 3rd party "anything" on Windows, except for Shavlik and
Sysinternals who's products seem to be better than Microsoft's.

the "Per user" GPO was done by consultants prior to me being employ at my
current company.
Right.

I am trying to clean it out.

as far as uninstalling it goes. When I log in as the "admin" user I do not
see the program in "control panle-> add and remove program" however, if the
I log in as a user who has it installed its there. The dilema is that these
machines generally have 10 to 15 user profiles in it. I am thinking for
deleting all the user profile.

OK, well that's EXACTLY the reason it should never be installed this way.

I don't know the best way to clean up this mess, but I've been there
myself trying to clean out a product that used InstallShield and had put
the uninst log in the user profile! It was a bit of a nightmare; had to
restore some old profiles from backup to local machines so I could
access the original InstallShield script files. I then ran a compliance
script on all machines to make sure all paths were valid. Then there was
an issue with UserShellFolders - local admin didn't have the folders
that were in the user profile and I had to use local admin to do the
uninstall. I then had to sort out all the un-registration of COM in the
registry because the original installer didn't fully clean this up. Then
there was the HKCU. In the end it all worked perfectly but it was a lot
of work.

Be careful if you delete user's profiles; this could seriously break
their ability to use their software (unless you know what you're doing).

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Jack,

I absolutly agree that software should not be deploy using GPO in the user
container especially sth like Office.
OK.

If you refer to my posting

"I would like to deploy OFFICE 2k3 to all of them. I am
optioning to go to a third party software distribution tools"

I avoid 3rd party "anything" on Windows, except for Shavlik and
Sysinternals who's products seem to be better than Microsoft's.

the "Per user" GPO was done by consultants prior to me being employ at my
current company.
Right.

I am trying to clean it out.

as far as uninstalling it goes. When I log in as the "admin" user I do not
see the program in "control panle-> add and remove program" however, if the
I log in as a user who has it installed its there. The dilema is that these
machines generally have 10 to 15 user profiles in it. I am thinking for
deleting all the user profile.

OK, well that's EXACTLY the reason it should never be installed this way.

I don't know the best way to clean up this mess, but I've been there
myself trying to clean out a product that used InstallShield and had put
the uninst log in the user profile! It was a bit of a nightmare; had to
restore some old profiles from backup to local machines so I could
access the original InstallShield script files. I then ran a compliance
script on all machines to make sure all paths were valid. Then there was
an issue with UserShellFolders - local admin didn't have the folders
that were in the user profile and I had to use local admin to do the
uninstall. I then had to sort out all the un-registration of COM in the
registry because the original installer didn't fully clean this up. Then
there was the HKCU. In the end it all worked perfectly but it was a lot
of work.

Be careful if you delete user's profiles; this could seriously break
their ability to use their software (unless you know what you're doing).

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Jack,

I absolutly agree that software should not be deploy using GPO in the user
container especially sth like Office.
OK.

If you refer to my posting

"I would like to deploy OFFICE 2k3 to all of them. I am
optioning to go to a third party software distribution tools"

I avoid 3rd party "anything" on Windows, except for Shavlik and
Sysinternals who's products seem to be better than Microsoft's.

the "Per user" GPO was done by consultants prior to me being employ at my
current company.
Right.

I am trying to clean it out.

as far as uninstalling it goes. When I log in as the "admin" user I do not
see the program in "control panle-> add and remove program" however, if the
I log in as a user who has it installed its there. The dilema is that these
machines generally have 10 to 15 user profiles in it. I am thinking for
deleting all the user profile.

OK, well that's EXACTLY the reason it should never be installed this way.

I don't know the best way to clean up this mess, but I've been there
myself trying to clean out a product that used InstallShield and had put
the uninst log in the user profile! It was a bit of a nightmare; had to
restore some old profiles from backup to local machines so I could
access the original InstallShield script files. I then ran a compliance
script on all machines to make sure all paths were valid. Then there was
an issue with UserShellFolders - local admin didn't have the folders
that were in the user profile and I had to use local admin to do the
uninstall. I then had to sort out all the un-registration of COM in the
registry because the original installer didn't fully clean this up. Then
there was the HKCU. In the end it all worked perfectly but it was a lot
of work.

Be careful if you delete user's profiles; this could seriously break
their ability to use their software (unless you know what you're doing).

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Jack,

I absolutly agree that software should not be deploy using GPO in the user
container especially sth like Office.
OK.

If you refer to my posting

"I would like to deploy OFFICE 2k3 to all of them. I am
optioning to go to a third party software distribution tools"

I avoid 3rd party "anything" on Windows, except for Shavlik and
Sysinternals who's products seem to be better than Microsoft's.

the "Per user" GPO was done by consultants prior to me being employ at my
current company.
Right.

I am trying to clean it out.

as far as uninstalling it goes. When I log in as the "admin" user I do not
see the program in "control panle-> add and remove program" however, if the
I log in as a user who has it installed its there. The dilema is that these
machines generally have 10 to 15 user profiles in it. I am thinking for
deleting all the user profile.

OK, well that's EXACTLY the reason it should never be installed this way.

I don't know the best way to clean up this mess, but I've been there
myself trying to clean out a product that used InstallShield and had put
the uninst log in the user profile! It was a bit of a nightmare; had to
restore some old profiles from backup to local machines so I could
access the original InstallShield script files. I then ran a compliance
script on all machines to make sure all paths were valid. Then there was
an issue with UserShellFolders - local admin didn't have the folders
that were in the user profile and I had to use local admin to do the
uninstall. I then had to sort out all the un-registration of COM in the
registry because the original installer didn't fully clean this up. Then
there was the HKCU. In the end it all worked perfectly but it was a lot
of work.

Be careful if you delete user's profiles; this could seriously break
their ability to use their software (unless you know what you're doing).

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Jack,

I absolutly agree that software should not be deploy using GPO in the user
container especially sth like Office.
OK.

If you refer to my posting

"I would like to deploy OFFICE 2k3 to all of them. I am
optioning to go to a third party software distribution tools"

I avoid 3rd party "anything" on Windows, except for Shavlik and
Sysinternals who's products seem to be better than Microsoft's.

the "Per user" GPO was done by consultants prior to me being employ at my
current company.
Right.

I am trying to clean it out.

as far as uninstalling it goes. When I log in as the "admin" user I do not
see the program in "control panle-> add and remove program" however, if the
I log in as a user who has it installed its there. The dilema is that these
machines generally have 10 to 15 user profiles in it. I am thinking for
deleting all the user profile.

OK, well that's EXACTLY the reason it should never be installed this way.

I don't know the best way to clean up this mess, but I've been there
myself trying to clean out a product that used InstallShield and had put
the uninst log in the user profile! It was a bit of a nightmare; had to
restore some old profiles from backup to local machines so I could
access the original InstallShield script files. I then ran a compliance
script on all machines to make sure all paths were valid. Then there was
an issue with UserShellFolders - local admin didn't have the folders
that were in the user profile and I had to use local admin to do the
uninstall. I then had to sort out all the un-registration of COM in the
registry because the original installer didn't fully clean this up. Then
there was the HKCU. In the end it all worked perfectly but it was a lot
of work.

Be careful if you delete user's profiles; this could seriously break
their ability to use their software (unless you know what you're doing).