Sllipstream Office 2003 SP2 to Virtual CD

[speckytecky]

We have the HH Virtual CD which houses amongst other programmes Office 2003. We recently moved to a new domain and pointing the workstation HH Virtual CD software to the share on the new domain seems to work OK for most programmes. However, Office 2003 keeps reporting that it can't find Office 2003 SP2. Am I right in thinking we need to create an Office 2003 SP2 disk and upload it to this share - if so how do you go about it please?

[Michael]

Copy the Office 2003 CD to your hard drive, for example C:\Office2003, using the command D:\setup /a from the run menu.

 

Download Office 2003 SP2 (scroll to the bottom) and SP3 fullfile or admin versions.

 

Download these updates to C:\ and extract them as follows:

 

C:\Office2003SP2-KB887616-FullFile-ENU /t:C:\Office2003SP2 /c

C:\Office2003SP3-KB923618-FullFile-ENU /t:C:\Office2003SP3 /c

 

Apply Office 2003 SP2 as follows:

 

msiexec /p C:\Office2003SP2\MAINSP2ff.msp /a C:\Office2003\PRO11.MSI shortfilenames=true /qb

msiexec /p C:\Office2003SP2\OWC11SP2ff.msp /a C:\Office2003\OWC11.MSI shortfilenames=true /qb

 

Repeat the same process with Office 2003 SP3. Please note if you're using Office 2003 Standard or Professional, change PRO11.MSI as appropriate!! Hope this helps.

[speckytecky]

Thanks Michael - as usual you are an absolute gem and mine of useful info. My EduGeek Hero

[Michael]

You're most welcome

[OutToLunch]

Does this method leave a local cache after install? The last slipstream attempt I tried didn't quite work out!

[Michael]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by cache in this instance?

[OutToLunch]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by cache in this instance?

 

Sorry, should have explained myself better. If you install Office from CD you have the option at the end of the install to leave the installation files, which are cached from CD during setup, on the local PC HD. This is handy to avoid heavy network access when a new feature is installed or when windows has one of those "I need the MSI for no obvious reason!" days. I slipstreamed the service packs onto O2K3 Pro install point and although I got a working O2K3 SP2 install, it wouldn't cache any files locally. Hope that makes more sense?

[Michael]

As far as I am aware when performing an admin installation all mandatory and optional components are installed to the workstation, so this avoids MSI requests.

 

In a hypothetical situation however if Office did ask for the MSI, you could simply point to your distribution share \\SERVERNAME\Distribution\Office2003 for example. I have always created admin installs from Office '97 to the current day to avoid these kind of problems.

[OutToLunch]

Think it must be something wierd and wonderful with my setup Created a distribution share and installed using the all option, no run on first use, still get random lessons where the kids go to do something in Publisher and it decides it needs access to the MSI, then won't let the kids (or rather me looking over their shoulder!) enter the correct path to find it.

[Michael]

What version(s) of Office are you using? And how did you deploy Office? By GPO or by including it on an image?

[OutToLunch]

Office 2003 Professional with the SP slipstreamed - deployed on an image. Think I'll have to bite the bullet and spend a day removing then installing via GP instead.

[Michael]

You shouldn't need to uninstall, just install on your existing installation.

[OutToLunch]

Permission to blame "that bloke on the internet" when I explode the MS Office install in our IT room?

[Michael]

Haha I wouldn't say something if I wasn't certain! If you have reservations, I suggest you test on a few machines before doing it site-wide.

[OutToLunch]

Bar a hilarious hiccup with forgetting the MST file and accidentally sending out Outlook and Infopath, all seems to have worked - now to see if it stops doing the randomly prompt for MSI thing. Cheers Michael!