[ms office - 2010] What is the best way to roll out Office 2010 throughout the school?

[bandgeekmafia78]

Hi.

 

During the Summer holidays I intend to upgrade every computer in the School from Office 2003 to Office 2010.

 

My initial thought was to update our Ghost images and install Office 2010 on a new image before rolling this out to all of the computers. However, I'm not sure if this would work now that you have to register your licences on your KMS Server.

 

Can anyone confirm that this method of rollout will work? If not, what would you suggest?

 

I'm reluctant to roll out using Group Policy but if this is the best method I'll give it a crack. This article I have found seems to suggest that Group Policy is the best method: How to deploy office 2010 using GPO and OCT. - Spiceworks Community

 

Thanks.

 

Alan.

[happymeal]

Just finished rolling that one out here!

To be honest, I found that Group Policy was the way forward with it - we knocked together a script that would uninstall Office 2003 and install 2010 on startup.

This was a bit quicker that using the Deployment Software (We were looking at cobbling together another image as well as the time), and way quicker than rolling out Ghosted images (Think there was a key-issue, can't remember!).

There are some very good scripts on here to help you - Office 2010 Group Policy Templates

 

Once we'd fiddled around with the script, we just started the PC's up and let them do their thing, and checked them after!

[ricki]

HI

 

What we did was copy the dvd to a drive and using the command line run Path\setup.exe \admin. You will set up the way it will install things here.

 

We then unlinked the gpo's then installed office 2003 which removed the old version.

 

Then we used the install script to install the program that runs from a startup script in gpo.

 

Have a look here Deploy Office 2010 by using Group Policy computer startup scripts

 

Then use the gpo templates to control office say for save file type.

 

Richard

[bandgeekmafia78]

HappyMeal - don't suppose you have a copy of your script do you?

[ricki]

Its on the link I sent you.

 

Richard

[happymeal]

Sorry, someone came into the office and actually made me get up to do something - the gits.

I'll dig it out and fire it over to you

[CTgeek]

I'd also like to have a copy of the script, if possible? Thanks

[3s-gtech]

Microsoft's own script for this is good (assuming Office Professional Plus 2010). This will uninstall 2003 and 2007. You just need to create your admin setup first, and make sure the config line points to it. I have successfully used this on a few hundred installs.

 

This also checks for existing installs in both 32 and 64 bit OSs, so you can leave the GPO applied.

 

setlocal

REM *********************************************************************
REM Environment customization begins here. Modify variables below.
REM *********************************************************************

REM Get ProductName from the Office product's core Setup.xml file, and then add "office14." as a prefix. 
set ProductName=Office14.PROPLUS

REM Set DeployServer to a network-accessible location containing the Office source files.
set DeployServer=\\server\install$\Office2010

REM Set ConfigFile to the configuration file to be used for deployment (required)
set ConfigFile=\\server\install$\Office2010\ProPlus.WW\config.xml

REM Set LogLocation to a central directory to collect log files.
set LogLocation=\\server\install$\Office2010\Office2010LogFiles

REM *********************************************************************
REM Deployment code begins here. Do not modify anything below this line.
REM *********************************************************************

IF NOT "%ProgramFiles(x86)%"=="" (goto ARP64) else (goto ARP86)

REM Operating system is X64. Check for 32 bit Office in emulated Wow6432 uninstall key
:ARP64
reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432NODE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\%ProductName%
if NOT %errorlevel%==1 (goto End)

REM Check for 32 and 64 bit versions of Office 2010 in regular uninstall key.(Office 64bit would also appear here on a 64bit OS) 
:ARP86
reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\%ProductName%
if %errorlevel%==1 (goto DeployOffice) else (goto End)

REM If 1 returned, the product was not found. Run setup here.
:DeployOffice
start /wait %DeployServer%\setup.exe /config %ConfigFile%
echo %date% %time% Setup ended with error code %errorlevel%. >> %LogLocation%\%computername%.txt

REM If 0 or other was returned, the product was found or another error occurred. Do nothing.
:End

Endlocal

[Sukhdeepak]

Thanks a lot for providing such a useful information.

[gshaw]

One thing with the script, do you have your GPOs set to "wait for network" so the logon screen won't appear until the script has run? Otherwise you can in theory log in and start using Office while it's being upgraded which probably wouldn't go too well?

 

Just testing the MS script via Shutdown script rather than Startup... much easier to say leave a PC running when you leave for the day rather than wait 15 minutes when staff get in

Edited August 12, 2011 by gshaw