Deployment of MsOffice 2003 from SCCM - Part1

Disclaimer : This article is being published on the basis of my lab output which is being created on my virtual pc, in the production environment it may or may not be applicable for all circumstances. Recommending you to do your lab test first and then do the activities on the production environment.

In my previous articles you have seen how to build new operating system and bringing it to a domain by capturing the image from reference computer. In this article you will see how to deploy a software packages for end users.

Before you are reading this article I would appreciate if you read my previous articles which has been published on SCCM so that you can have idea of basic configuration of SCCM and technical terminology words.

This sofrware deployment package is divided into sub-parts where the current article is only dedicated to Office 2003 installation guide and other parts for Office 2007 and non-micorosft products.






From this article you will understand how to deploy Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office 2007 and other non-Microsoft product like Adobe, Winzip etc.

My requirement : I have some clients running windows xp in my domain and my organization (happy.com) want us to deploy Ms Office 2003\2007 on XP Machines and then deploy adobe & Winzip as well.

My Lab Setup:

All lab pc is configured under Virtual PC 2007.

I have totally 3 computers where I am going to perform the task which is being assigned.

1) MainDC.happy.com : It is a domain controller which holds the role of DNS and DHCP as well.

2) SCCM.happy.com : It is my system Center Configuration Manager Application Server where I have all the application soft copy which needs to distributed to end user computers.

3) Newlabtest.happy.com : It is my client-end testing machine where I am going to install Ms Office 2003, then Ms Office 2007, then abode and winzip.

Software package deployment is not really complicated one as I thought earlier, all you need is to understand the basic process how it is creating the package, distributing the package and installing it to the appropriate computers. In other word I would say 3 steps process
1) Creating a Package
2) Distributing the created package
3) Advertising the package and monitoring the process of the package which we distributed.


How to deploy Microsoft Office 2003 Application:

1) Copy the MsOffice Application into a Local Drive:
Make a soft copy of Ms Office 2003 Application in the repository drive and share this application by giving full control to Administrator, SCCM computer and System as well. In my case it is SCCM server  where I created one folder called as “MsOffice2003” under E drive.

2) Create a MST file :
This MST file is nothing but creating a answer file which will used by sccm whenever any question is arised by application itself. In this MST file we will configure the mode of installation, giving out product key and other settings, in simple word we are customizing the MS Office application as per our requirement. Inorder to create a MST file you need to download and install Office Resource Kit tool. Click here for download

In my scenario I have downloaded it already

Configuring Ms Office Application by creating customized MST file:

a. Click on Start => Program => Microsoft Office => Microsoft Office Tools => Microsoft Office 2003 Resource Kit => Custom Installation Wizard

b. Custom Installation Wizard will open the welcome screen and this wizard will contain 24 steps, I am not going to drive on each and every steps because it is very much self understanding but I will make sure I am not missing out any important point as well.
Figure 1:

 
Simply click on next, the next screen it will ask you to give the location of office 2003 msi installation file, in my case PRO11.msi under file://sccm/msoffice2003/pro11.msi
Figure 2

 
Once you click on next it will first read the PRO11.msi file information and then it will give you option of either creating new MST file or open the existing MST file, I have chosen the first option – Create a new MST file
Figure 3:

 
Click on Next – It will ask you to give a name for this MST file and location where you want to save this. I would recommend you to keep the MST file in the same location where you have ms office 2003 soft copy. Here I have selected the path of Ms Office location folder and I preferred to give a name as MsOffice.MST
Figure 4:


 
Next Screen will ask you to specify the default path where Ms Office 2003 needs to be installed and what is the organization you need to have. I have chose "C:\ProgramFiles\Microsoft Office" as a path and Organization as HAPPY
Figure 5:

 
Next option you will get is whether you need to have default setup behavior or would like to remove any previous version of office. You can select any one of the following option as per your requirement, in my case I selected to remove the previous office version
Figure 6:

 
Then select the installation feature which you want to run on the client end. I have just selected only Excel, Powerpoint, Word, Infopath and Outlook.
Figure 7:
 

Once you click on Next, it will ask you either you want to have preconfigured product key for your client end or you want them to put it while doing installation. You need to decide how you want to go with, in my case I have given the preconfigured key for my client end machine.
Figure 8:
 

Then I kept everything default setting for MST file i.e from point 9 to 24 (No changes)

If you see the steps 23 of MST creation there you can add\modify your existing setup file or you can set product key configuration
Figure 9:

 
Now the last step will give you the command sequence for running this MST file : setup.exe TRANSFORMS=\\Sccm\MSoffice2003\MsOffice2003.MST /qb-
Figure 10:

 
The above commands are very much useful when you are doing silent installation on client end directlyor from network path. The above commands state that run setup.exe which should take the configuration information from .MST file i.e Transforms and then run it silently without giving any option for them i.e /q and b is nothing but basic installation.

If you want to learn more on the command line of Ms office 2003 setup file simply run setup.exe /p it will give you enough of knowledge on the command respective.

Once you click on Exit, it will create MsOffice2003.MST file under Msoffice2003 folder.

3) Create a MsOffice 2003 Package:

• Open the SCCM Console
• Expand Site Database => Computer Management => Software Distribution
• Right click Packages => Select New Package
• In the General Option : Fillout the name and other details

Figure 11:

 
Under Data Source : Give the path of MsOffice2003 Folder
Figure12:

 
Then simply click on next till you finish this wizard : Let it be the default option selected unless and until you require to have customize change.

4) Create a Program for the MsOffice 2003 Package:

Now we have created one package for getting the information to copied in the distribution point but before that we could distribute this package we need to set a command to run this package i.e exe (execution command) so inorder to do this

• Expand Site Database => Computer Management => Software Distribution => Packages => Microsoft MsOffice Package
• Right Click on Programs => New => Programs

It will open the configuration wizard for this programs under general information you need to put the exe command,  and for MsOffice 2003 application the command will be “SETUPPRO.EXE TRANSFORMS=MsOffice2003.MST /qb” and under "After running" column you can set the status of client computer what you want the status activity after the intallation  like after installing the Msoffice restart the computer or don’t do anything. I have set it to restart my computer.

Note: First you browse and select SETUPPRO.exe and then type the rest of the information. This is very important place because if you miss out this information or if you put improper sequence then you can’t deploy it. One more thing, in MsOffice2003
Figure 13:

 
 Then the next screen will show you requirement like how much minimum disk space need to specify for client end machine and how many hours it should be set to execute the MsOffice application for doing the installation. I would recommend you to keep it unknown for both options because when I tried to execute it from one of the application package it was more then 2 hours and unfortunately I had set 2 hours of time due to which it has elapsed all the installation
 Figure 13:

 
Then click on Next and finish the configuration of program command with the default settings.

5) Distributing & Advertising the Package:

Now we have created the package and even program as well. It’s time to distribute the package to the Distribution point and then advertise it. Either we can do it one by one or select both the option randomly. I am going to do distribution and advertisement at the same time, so inorder to do this:

• Expand Site Database => Computer Management => Software Distribution => Packages
• Right Click Microsoft MsOffice 2003 Package => Distribute => Software
• It will show you welcome wizard click on Next
• Then select the shared repository distribution point and then click on Next

Figure 14:

 
Then it will ask you whether you want to advertise program, by default it will select “YES” option so let be there, just simply click on NEXT

Then it will show the selected program for MsOffice2003 : click on NEXT

Advertisement Target : It will ask where you want to advertise this package, here you need to specify the collection where you want to distribute this package. In my case it is All windows XP system where I have my newlabtest computer
Figure 15:
 

Once you click on Next it will ask you what will be your advertisement name : I chosen the default one and clicked on NEXT

Then it will ask you where do you want to advertise this package i.e either you advertise this package specifically for that collection only or you can include sub-collection as well. I select the default one i.e include sub-collection option and clicked on NEXT

Next will be whether you want to run this application for specific time, i.e., do you want to have expiry time or you don’t want. I chosen the default one : No Never expire the time for this package

Assign Program: In this place you need to give a time when to assign this task, in production environment during maintenance windows, as I am running in my lab I want to complete this task on high priority I have select assign it right way and ignore the maintenance window
Figure 16:

  
Then click next it will display summary and then click on Finish.
 Now package is being advertised…

6) Monitoring the process:

This is very important to understand once we advertise the package what is the current status and how to monitor it. For me it took hard time to understand atleast for 2 days because I have been waiting for 5 mins to see the task is being assigned or I need to wait for more then 15 mins because I was not aware but later I realized few of the things which can be tracked to know the status.

• Package Status : Expand that specific package (Msoffice2003 Package under sccm console) => click on package status => then right click the site name => show messages => all
  Figure 17:

 
If you double click the any one of the above information you will get the status.

• Need to confirm whether my package is getting copied to local DP : Based on the above information i.e package status my current task states that  package is being copied under my shared folder. Inorder to have clear picture open distribution manager log i.e distmgr.log. This log can be found under SCCM server i.e under the sccm application folder => Logs

Figure 18:
 

• When you click on Software Distribution under SCCM console it will display the current status of your advertised package

Figure 19:

 

• Under package status you will see that it is started to copy the package to client computer

Figure 21:

 

• If you go to the client computer on the right end side you will see one assign task,just double click that it will give you details about the package which is going to be installed

Figure 21:
 

• Then on the client computer very important one is execution manager log i.e execmgr.log : This log will give you clear picture about the current status of the package which is being installed on the client end computer

Figure 22
 

Once you click on Run or it start the assing package installation you will see the below screen
Figure 23:
 
 

Once it complete the process you will see the desired customized office application
Figure 25:

 Then take a restart of the client computer and you are done with MsOffice Package Installation.

I hope that this article is being very informative to you all, thank you for sharing your time and patience in this matter.

In my next article I will show you how to install MsOffice 2007 , then adobe and winzip. The reason why chosen this article to publish before I could publish an article on build and capture image is first you understand how the normal package installation works and then we will move to advance stage.

Thanks Giving: I would like to give special thanks to myitforums.com where multiple users have posted their query regarding this msoffice 2003 deployment because from there only I got hint how to deploy it. Brain Tucker who is publishing the great articles on SCCM\SMS and even he has released one video on how to configure MST file for office 2003 where I got some baseline about certain object explainations. I would like to thanks to Rajnish Sharma who had helped me in understanding the Ms Office 2007 deployment because of that only I understand the importance of programs and then customize tools.

Related Articles:

• System Center Configuration Manager

Reference Link:

• Custom Deploy Office 2003 with a Transform File
• Methods of Customizing Office
• Logs SCCM 2007

Upcoming articles:

• Deployment of Software Package for MsOffice 2007, Adobe and winzip - Part2
• Build and capture for Operating System Deployment through SCCM