Deploying Office 2007 applications with configuration Manager

These notes are at least partly for my own good because I always forget the settings between Office deployment projects. The screenshots are actually taken from Project 2007 standard which uses the same installation engine as the Office 2007 suite and other Office 2007 products like Visio, OneNote etc.

So the first thing to do with your Office 2007 deployment is create an .msp. You can do that by running the Office setup.exe with the /admin switch (setup.exe /admin).

When configuring the .msp you will need to pay particular attention to the Licensing and User Interface tab as well as the Modify Setup Properties tab.





On the Licensing and User Interface tab you should check the no cancel and suppress modal boxes. Leave the completion box unchecked as you do not want a "I'm done" box popping up behind the scenes and causing your installation to time-out.


On the Modify Setup Properties tab, its important to create a SETUP_REBOOT property. Depending on how I am deploying the application (in task sequence with restart controlled by task sequence, in program with restart by SMS or controlled by application) I like to set this either to Never or AutoIfNeeded. The default is baaaadd, as it causes a pop-up asking for a restart upon completion of the application installation. For more options and properties available check out http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179018.aspx.

Finally save your .msp in the updates folder. Name it so that it is first alphanumerically before service packs and other .msps that may be put in the updates folder. A date as the name may help you with change control. With the .msp in the updates folder you don't have to run setup.exe with any switches to it to install unattended. Make sure you working directory is the same as the directory setup.exe is in or the updates folder won't be found. This is configured by default, but I had at least one customer run setup.exe from a folder above (.\project2007std\setup.exe) and the setup could not find the .msp.

Hope this helps with your Office 2007 application deployments!