Sequencing Office Professional 2007 in 30 Easy Steps

Sequencing Office Professional 2007 in 30 easy steps

Introduction:The goal of this document is to demonstrate one particular way that Microsoft Office 2007 can be sequenced using Microsoft SoftGrid 4.2. It's not the only way, or the best way, it's just one way that seems to work well for me. I have not fully tested every single Office related function within this package so it's possible there could be issues although I've yet to come across any. Before you begin your own Office sequencing project I would highly recommend that you read this document fully along with KB939796 - Prescriptive guidance for sequencing 2007 Office programs in Microsoft SoftGrid. All of the steps are in here for a reason so failure to follow any one can potentially lead to total failure of your package.

Disclaimer: This document assumes that the reader is already well versed withSequencing Best Practices and is experienced in using the SoftGrid admin console, managing virtualized applications and publishing them to users. If not, those areas may be a better place to start. I will also repeat that this recipehas not been fully tested so if you use this guide you will need to ensure that it fulfills the requirements of your particular environment. That means it's up to you to test it before rolling it out. There are many ways to install Microsoft Office 2007 and way more features than I could even count so it would be impossible for me to test each one in any meaningful way.

Now with all that out of the way, on with the sequence!

1. Start your clean sequencing machine or VM, install the SoftGrid Sequencer and then run it:

2. Select the New Package... icon, or select File from the menu bar and select New Package...

3. When the New Package wizard starts it will ask you whether you would like some assistance. Always says Yes:

4. That will start the Package Configuration Wizard. Select Next:

5. Fill out your Package Information and click Next:

6. Add the supported Operating Systems and click Finish. I usually just add everything:

7. Clicking finish in step 6 will start the Installation Wizard. Click Next to continue:

8. For Sequencing Parameters leave all the defaults and click Next:

9. Now we're finally ready to begin capturing the package. Make sure you have your source files handy (I always copy them locally) and click Begin Monitoring... Once you click this the Sequencer will minimize itself to the System Tray when it's ready for you to start the installation.

10. Start the Office 2007 installation by running SETUP.EXE. When you start the setup program, the first screen you see is Enter Your Product Key. Enter your key and click Continue:

11. Accept the Microsoft Software License Terms and click Continue:

12. On the next screen select the Customize button. We need to make some changes before we have it actually start installing files:

13. On the Installation Options tab, set all of the Office programs to Run all from My Computer. Never set anything to Install on First Use.

13a. Disable the following components (note that "Not Available" means 'Do not install this component'):

• Microsoft Office Outlook -> Outlook Templates
• Microsoft Office PowerPoint -> Organization Chart Add-in for Microsoft Office programs
• Office Shared Features -> International Support -> Japanese Font
• Office Shared Features -> New and Open Microsoft Office Document Shortcuts
• Office Shared Features -> Proofing Tools -> English Proofing Tools -> Optical Character Recognition Modules
• Office Shared Features -> Proofing Tools -> French Proofing Tools -> Optical Character Recognition Modules
• Office Shared Features -> Proofing Tools -> Spanish Proofing Tools -> Optical Character Recognition Modules
• Office Tools -> Microsoft Office Document Imaging -> Help
• Office Tools -> Microsoft Office Document Imaging -> Scanning, OCR and Indexing Service Filter
• Office Tools -> Microsoft Script Editor (HTML Source Editing) -> Web Scripting -> Web Debugging
• Office Tools -> System Information
• Office Tools -> Windows SharePoint Services Support

14. Click the File Location tab and set the path to Q:\Off2K7 and click Install Now:

15. Grab some lunch while Office installs...

16. When complete, click Close:

17. Before stopping Monitoring, navigate to Q:\Off2K7 and launch each application. Also be sure to open Help and make sure that it functions properly. If prompted to configure automatic updates be sure to disable this feature. Once you're satisfied that all applications are working, maximize the Sequencer and select Stop Monitoring:

18. It will then prompt for you to specify the primary directory where the product was installed. Specify the Q:\Off2K7 folder and click OK:

19. Watch the Sequencer build the package. When complete click Next:

20. On the Additional Files to Map to the VFS screen, leave the defaults and click Finish:

21. Now the Application Wizard begins. Click Next to continue:

22. On the Configure Applications screen delete any icons you don't want. I got rid of the following:

• 2007 Microsoft Office Component
• Digital Certificate for VBA Projects
• Microsoft Office 2007 Language Settings
• Microsoft Office Diagnostics
• Notepad

To remove an icon simply right click it and select Remove. Note that you're not removing the application, just the icon. That should leave something like this:

Click Next.

23. If you want to create Feature Block 1, aka FB1 (and you do) then launch all applications except Outlook:

Click Next.

24. The Sequencer will now build FB1 and the rest of the package:

25. Click Finish to complete the steps in the Application Wizard.

26. Select the Virtual Registry tab in the Sequencer and expand the following virtual registry location:

USER\%SFT_SID%\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\UserInfo

Delete the following values if they exist:

• UserInitials
• UserName
• CompanyName

27. On the Virtual File System tab, expand CSIDL_APPDATA\Microsoft\Templates, and then right-click this entry to clear the virtualized flag. If you perform the sequencing operation on a Microsoft Windows XP-based computer, expand CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES_COMMON\Microsoft Shared\ink and right-click this entry to clear the virtualized flag.

28. Save the package with an appropriate name. Something obvious will come in handy later and any location is fine for now:

29. Once the package is saved, edit each OSD file in Notepad and make sure that local interaction is enabled. To do this, modify each .osd in the package to add the following entry to the <VIRTUALENV> section that appears after the <ENVLIST/> tag.

<POLICIES>

<LOCAL_INTERACTION_ALLOWED>TRUE</LOCAL_INTERACTION_ALLOWED>

</POLICIES>

It should look something like this:

30. Copy the folder containing your new package to your \Content shared folder. Once it's in the \Content share simply import it on the server and publish it to your clients.

That's it, Office 2007 sequenced in 30 easy steps. Actually step 30 is a big, multi-part step but I'm counting it anyway.

Sequencing Office 2007 in 30 easy stepsJ.C. Hornbeck - Microsoft Corporation