MS Office 2010 Rollout

[union122]

hey guys, need to rollout office 2010 to about 250 machines, mixed environment windows 7/xp..
We don't have a KMS server,

any recommendations ?

 

[thebige]

Invest in a good pair of sneakers ;-)

 

[Knightsman]

I would work on an Auto IT file or something that automates it. Put the install files on a share drive.

 

[CarrobesIT]

We don't have a KMS server,

Whether you have a KMS or not is irrelevant - that's just for activating the software. What you need to ask is do you have the Volume License version of the software?

If you do, then you can create an admin installation and enter either the KMS or MAK product key. You can then either trigger the installation from each individual workstation or assign it via Group Policy in AD (you are in a domain for that many PCs, right?).

KMS is simply an additional piece of software that can be downloaded from MS's site which allows you to activate the products internally instead of each copy contacting MS's activation servers.

On the other hand, if you don't have the volume license version, then you are pretty much screwed and will need to do a manual install on each workstation. That'll give you plenty of time to ponder why you didn't go for VL... (And please tell me that it isn't OEM!)

RobC.

 

[Knightsman]

Do you have a domain server?

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk

 

[NETWizz]

This is remarkably easy with Office 2010. You are in LUCK; since, there is pretty much nothing easier to deploy.

I did it with SCCM, but you can do it just fine with Group Policy... Provided you have Active Directory at the Minimum.

1st... Install A Windows 2008 R2 machine and setup KMS because it will make life so much easier! You don't have to do this, but it is the best... To do this, you simply enter the KMS Product key instead of the MAK Product Key.

It will automatically register an SRV record for _vlmcs._tcp in your domain, which will point to your KMS server. (This is how the clients will find KMS).

Here is what to do:

Copy the ENTIRE CD/DVD to a network share.

Put everything in here:
I.e. \\SERVER-OR-DFSNAMESPACE\Share\Microsoft Offcie 2010\

1. Create a new Customization File... for the entire Suite or whatever you want to install.


Under Setup Install location and organization name "Set your Organization Name"


Under "Licensing and user interface"

Display Level: None
UNCHECK "Completion notice"
CHECK "Suppress modal"


Under Features "Set feature installation states" go ahead and configure what will be installed.


If you want it to automatically activate
AUTO_ACTIVATE = 1 <== Set this in the Setup > Modify Setup parameters


YOU ARE DONE


File ==> Save As (it will create a .MSP for you)

Save it in the "Updates" folder. Automatically the MSI will pick the lowest one in alphabetical order... actually ASCII-betical order.

I saved mine as _full_unattend.msp and put that in \\SERVER-OR-DFSNAMESPACE\Share\Microsoft Offcie 2010\Updates\




The entire "Microsoft Office 2010" should be assigned Read + Execute rights for Authenticated Users... it is TOATALLY fine if users can go in there and install it as a self service; since, you are using KMS! Even IF they use their home computer and point it at that share, KMS should not activate their copy.

If you use the MAK then instead of KMS, you probably want to set this to "Domain Computers" Read+Execute, so users can't access it.


I actually have a GPOMSI folder and a GPOEXE folder... and a few other Software Deployment folders that already setup the rights for everything... You may want to set this up.


Now you need to deploy it via Setup.Exe, so you can't just assign it as a Group Policy... Though I would imagine if you pick the right .MSI it would probably work.


Anyway, edit the right config.xml file:

If it is ProPlus, go into ProPlus... If it is Enterprise, Go into Enterprise, if you are Just installing Word... Go into word...

Edit the config.xml file

Change these values to this:
<Display Level="none" CompletionNotice="no" SuppressModal="yes" AcceptEula="yes" />



Create a vBScript like this... (ending in .vbs):

Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
objShell.Exec("\\SERVER-OR-DFSNAMESPACE\Share\Microsoft Offcie 2010\setup.exe /config \\SERVER-OR-DFSNAMESPACE\Share\Microsoft Offcie 2010\Enterprise.WW\config.xml
")

Create a new Group Policy Object and link it to an OU, a Site, or the Domain if you want...

Computer Settings > Policies > Windows Settings > Scripts > Startup Scripts.

View the files and save this as a .vbs file and put it in there then choose it.

If it is ProPlus, go into ProPlus... If it is Enterprise, Go into Enterprise, if you are Just installing Word... Go into word...

Edit the config.xml file

Change these values to this:
<Display Level="none" CompletionNotice="no" SuppressModal="yes" AcceptEula="yes" />



Create a vBScript like this... (ending in .vbs):

Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
objShell.Exec("\\SERVER-OR-DFSNAMESPACE\Share\Microsoft Offcie 2010\setup.exe /config \\SERVER-OR-DFSNAMESPACE\Share\Microsoft Offcie 2010\Enterprise.WW\config.xml
")

Assign it as a Start-up Script

Computer Configuration > Policies > Window Settings > Scripts > Startup

Click on "Show Files" and drag it in there... Then ADD it.

It will look like this:

 

[NETWizz]

Invest in a good pair of sneakers ;-)

Terrible advice. This is the reason why large organizations are always broke... They hire too many IT people to do this type of stuff. This suggestion is NOT even funny.

It might actually work for 250 computers, but what if I were your boss and asked you to do 2500 computers?

 

[NETWizz]

KMS is simply an additional piece of software that can be downloaded from MS's site which allows you to activate the products internally instead of each copy contacting MS's activation servers.


RobC.

Under the EA (Enterprise Agreement) you get Volume Licences Media and a set of product keys KMS & MAK.


All you do to setup KMS is install a Server i.e. Server 2008 R2 & when it promps for a Product Key enter the KMS Product Key... DONE.