Software Deployment

These are the customization which we did for our customer:
[1] Product Key
[2] Accept licence agreements
[3[Installation with basic UI (/qb! Only progress bar)
[4] Click User Information tab, ensure details are as follows:
Full Name: Standard User
Initials: SU
Organisation: “”
[5] English (USA) to be set as the default Office 2007 language. Similar for Excel and PowerPoint.
[6] Default format for saving files to be Office 97-2003 .doc, .xls and .ppt for Word, Excel and PowerPoint respectively.
[7] Default file locations for Word to be as below.
Documents U:\Documents\Word
Clipart pictures G:\Apps\MSOffice\Clipart
User Templates U:\System\Templates
Workgroup Templates G:\Apps\MSOffice\Template
AutoRecover files U:\Documents\Word
Tools U:\System\Templates
Startup U:\Documents\Word
User Templates U:\System\Templates
Workgroup Templates G:\Apps\MSOffice\Template
[8] Default file locations for Excel to be as below. AutoRecover file location U:\Documents\Excel
Default file location U:\Documents\Excel
[9] Default file locations for PowerPoint to be as below
Default file location U:\Documents\PowerPoint
[10] Limit available Installation Options that are available to end users via Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. For Installation Options set the following as Not Available and Locked:
Microsoft Office Access
Microsoft Office InfoPath
Microsoft Office Outlook
Microsoft Office Publisher
Microsoft Office Visio Viewer
(This should leave just Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Shared Features, and Tools as not locked.)


[11] Prevention of Office 2007 “reregistering” itself for file associations etc when launched if you have earlier version of Office installed on the machine.
[12] Prevention of the Office 2007 “Welcome/Privacy Options” screen appearing initially for all users.
[13] Allow for roaming Quick Access toolbar (so that changes to the toolbar are maintained at next logoff/logon).
[font="book antiqua"] [14] Language pack for French,Spanish etc.......
[font="book antiqua"]
[font="book antiqua"]Regards,
[font="book antiqua"]Sumi

We can have standard settings for all installs. Example, a default My Document location, macro settings, security.....as in all the things in OCT which helps all installs having the same standards. Default template location as well...

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179097.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc764476.aspx

These 2 links is of great help. They don't have a headline of "Advantages of OCT" or "Benefits of OCT" but you can extract and know the good points from the details.

Hi Harjinder,
Thanks for the help. But I actually have an idea on what all things can be done using OCT. The answer i am looking for is what are all the customizations that you guys have actually done for your clients (in real time projects).

Pls let me know if any..

Thanks,
Rajesh.

I suspect the reason for the dearth of responses is that the number of options is probably equal to or greater than the number of clients. If I'm working for a Spanish client, they may want to include the Spanish proofing tools, whereas a French client probably wouldn't. Unless they had a Spanish subsidiary company, in which case...

I'm sure you get the idea.

Thank you Sumit.. That was very helpful...

@VBSCAB
.......................................
Unless they had a Spanish subsidiary company, in which case...

I'm sure you get the idea.


Yes Ian, I get it.... But the problem is, my client doesnt have a requirement doc for himself [:@] and has asked us 2 come up with one containing the best practices that can be applied generally... I have worked on OCT only for one Client earlier and there we did just a very few customizations that i have given in the first post... So was wondering if that is all everyone does and just wanted to check with you guys.. [:)]

[11] Prevention of Office 2007 “reregistering” itself for file associations etc when launched if you have earlier version of Office installed on the machine.


Hi Sumit,
I sorted out the settings that I need and managed to achieve them except the above..
Can u pls throw some light on how to include this with OCT??

Thanks,
Rajesh.

Don't install two versions of Office side by side. Not recommended. Problem solved.

I second that. I lead the charge on the office cleanup project for my place of employment and man was it ugly. We had Access 97, Access 2000, Office 97, Office XP Standard, Office XP Pro, scattered Office 2003 apps and a huge number of various viewers everywhere.

If the world were a perfect place, it would be one version of Office for one place of employment. We got everything standardized and cleaned but it was 0 fun.

Singing with the choir-

While Office 2k7 will let you install alongside 2003 (except for Outlook), I would not recommend it. Bad Things (TM) happened when we tested this for certain configurations.

We did not do many configurations, except:
1. License key, accept EULA, silent install (since we pushed to both XP and Vista)
2. Uninstall all installed 2003 products.
3. Service packs in the Updates folder, etc..
4. If you are doing a staged rollout, OR you know that your clients are working with a mixed 2003/2007 deployment, do either:
a. Default save docs in 2003 format or
b. BEFORE starting rollout, deploy the Office 2007 compatibility pack to all machines.
5. Install the Save as XPS/PDF addin. You need to put this in Updates, then point the OCT to install this AFTER you finish the 2007 install.

You may also want to consider path for default saving of documents, if you want people to point to a certain folder (makes it easier to migrate people to new machines if you know their docs are all in one folder, theoretically ;-)