Quick tip for opening Microsoft Office files without installing Office

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

From time to time, I find myself working on a server and thinking it would be useful to be able to open a document and, whilst WordPad usually manages to open enough of a Word document for me to get by, sometimes I need to open a spreadsheet – and this is what happened a few minutes ago when I was checking to see if a couple of hotfixes were included in Windows Server 2008 service pack 2.

Microsoft publishes this information as an Excel spreadsheet, which is all very well if I want to open it on my PC, but doesn’t help if I’m working directly on a server (which is unlikely to have any Office applications installed).

This is where my Office Live Workspace came in handy. I uploaded the file to my online Documents workspace and, within a few seconds, I was able to preview it (including searching for the relevant hotfix numbers), without having to go and find a computer with Excel installed.

Microsoft Office Live Workspace opening an Excel spreadsheet

The sun sets on Windows XP, Office 2003 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 – Vista SP1 and XP SP3 will soon be unblocked – Office 2007 SP2 to ship at the end of April – Office “14” is given a name (and will be available in both 32- and 64-bit versions)

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Just in case you hadn’t noticed, today is the day that Windows XP and Office 2003 end their mainstream support phase and move onto extended support – it’s security hotfixes only from now on, unless you are prepared to pay. Security updates for Windows XP will continue to be issued via Windows Update until 8 April 2014 (ditto for Office 2003).

Whilst XP has enjoyed a longer period of mainstream support than would otherwise have been the case (due to the time it took for Microsoft to ship its successor – Windows Vista), many organisations have held back on upgrades due to the negative press that Vista has received (which may have been partially warranted at release but is not exactly valid in 2009). Regardless of the perception of Windows Vista, Windows Vista R2 [ahem] Windows 7 is receiving plenty of praise and a release candidate is widely expected to be released within the next few weeks. Those considering an eventual move to Windows 7 could prepare themselves by application testing on the beta – or even using Windows Vista as a limited pilot in preparation (the two operating systems are remarkably similar, for all but those applications that need to work at a very deep level – e.g. anti virus and VPN software).

Meanwhile, reaction to Office 2007’s “ribbon” user interface has been mixed; regardless of the many improvements in Office applications with the 2007 release, many users are still using the same basic word processing features they had in earlier versions (dare I say as far back as Word for Windows 2.0) and so organisations are needing further persuasion to upgrade – for some the business case is only justified through integration with Office server products (such as Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2) although, my personal experience of reverting to Office 2003 for a few weeks whilst my laptop was being repaired was not a happy one… it’s amazing how those “little tweaks” become embedded in your way of working after a while.

As for Windows Server, those organisations still running Windows Server 2003 (including R2) with service pack 1 lose their support today – Windows Server 2003 with service pack 2 will continue to receive mainstream support until 13 July 2010 with extended support ending on 14 July 2015.

On the subject of service packs, now is probably a good time to remind people that the service pack blocking tools for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 will expire on 28 April 2009 and 19 May 2009 respectively, after which time the updates will be automatically delivered via Windows Update. As for Office updates, Office 2007 service pack 2 is due for release on 28 April 2009 (including support for ODF, PDF and XPS document formats).

Looking ahead to the next release of Microsoft Office, various websites are reporting that Office codenamed “14” has been named as… no surprise here… Office 2010. APC’s David Flynn is citing delays that prevent a tandem launch with Windows 7 but I have no recollection of any announcements by Microsoft for either a joint launch or a 2009 release – and they have not even committed publicly to releasing Windows 7 this year (it’s all pure speculation by journalists, bloggers and other pundits)… how can something slip if it’s not even been formally announced? Meanwhile ARStechnica is concentrating on the availability of both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Office 2010.

The halycon days of wholesale PC refreshes every few years may now be just a distant memory but these changes signal the need for IT departments to seriously consider their options. With Office 2010 expected to include web applications based on a monthly subscription charge, increasingly feasible online services, and desktop virtualisation becoming increasingly viable (in various forms – be that full VDI, a managed virtual desktop running on a traditional PC, or a hybrid solution using something like MED-V), these are interesting times for those given the task of providing a corporate desktop.

Buying Microsoft Office for a home PC doesn’t need to be expensive

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Over the last few months I’ve found myself in conversation with various people who want to install Microsoft Office on their PC but are put off by the high price of a a full retail copy.  What many people don’t seem to realise is that there is a Home and Student Edition for Microsoft Office 2007 that is very reasonably priced and it’s valid for up to 3 PCs in one household.  Suggested retail price in the US is $149.99 but, here in the UK, Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition can be purchased for as little as £53.93 (Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 Home and Student Edition is slightly more expensive at £78.45).

Because Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition is intended for consumers in general (i.e. it’s not just an educational discount) there is no need for purchasers to prove academic status.  It just needs to be for home/educational use (i.e. not for a small business!).  You don’t get the full Office suite, but you get the important bits – Word, Excel and PowerPoint (no Outlook, but Windows Mail, Windows Contacts and Windows Calendar are all perfectly capable clients and are built into Windows Vista).  Office:Mac users also get Entourage (minus Exchange Server support) and Messenger (although Messenger:Mac  is a free download).

If someone in your household is in education, students (school, college and University) and their family members can get even better deals including something called the Ultimate Steal which allows the purchase of Office Ultimate 2007 for £38.95 (which includes Access, Excel, Groove, Infopath, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher and Word), Office Visio Professional 2007 for £36.95, Office Language Packs for £9.95 or a Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade for £40.95 but for these prices you do need to be enrolled on a college course with an academic e-mail address and meet certain requirements regarding hours of study (sadly my 3 hours a week in evening classes won’t count!).

It seems that buying a copy of Office doesn’t need to break the bank after all.

PC, phone and web: How Microsoft plans to build the next generation of user experiences

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Channel 9 man watching PDC onlineI’m supposed to be taking a week off work, but the announcements coming out of Microsoft’s PDC have the potential to make a huge impact on the way that we experience our IT. So, it’s day 2 of PDC and I’ve spent the afternoon and evening watching the keynote and blogging about new developments in Windows…

Yesterday I wrote about Ray Ozzie’s PDC keynote during which the Windows Azure services platform was announced. Today, he was back on stage – this time with a team of Microsoft executives talking about the client platform, operating system and application innovations that provide the front end user experience in Microsoft’s vision of the future of personal computing. And, throughout the presentation, there was one phrase that kept on coming back:

PC, phone and web.

Over the years, PCs have changed a lot but the fundamental features have been flexibility, resilience and adaptability to changing needs. Now the PC is adapting again for the web-centred era.

Right now, the ‘net and a PC are still two worlds – we’ve barely scratched the surface of how to take the most value of the web and the personal computer combined.

PC, phone, and web.

Ozzie spoke of the most fundamental PC advantage being the fact that the operating system and applications are right next to the hardware – allowing the user experience to take advantage of multiple, high resolution, screens, voice, touch, drag and drop (to combine applications), storage (for confidentiallity, mobility, and speed of access) so that users may richly create, consume, interact with, and edit information. The PC is a personal information management device.

The power of the web is its global reach – using the ‘net we can communicate with anyone, anywhere and the Internet is “every company’s front door” – a common meeting place. The unique value of the web is the ability to assemble the world’s people, organisation, services and devices – so that we can communicate, transact and share.

Like PCs, phone software is close to the hardware and it has full access to the capabilities of each device – but with the unique advantage is that it’s always with the user – and it knows where they are (location) and at what time – providing spontaneity for capture and delivery of information.

Microsoft’s vision includes applications that spans devices in a seamless experience – harnessing the power of all three access methods.

PC, phone and web.

“We need these platforms to work together and yet we also want access to the full power and capabilities of each”

[Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation]

I won’t cover all of the detail of the 2-and-a-half hour presentation here, but the following highlights cover the main points from the keynote.

Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President for Microsoft’s Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group spoke about how Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 share the same kernel but today’s focus is on the client product:

  • Sinofsky brought Julie Larson-Green, Corporate Vice President, Windows Experience on stage to show off the new features in Windows 7. Windows 7 is worth a blog post (or few) of its own, but the highlights were:
    • User interface enhancements, including new taskbar functionality and access to the ribbon interface for developer.
    • Jump lists (menus on right click) from multiple locations in the user interface.
    • Libraries which allow for searching across multiple computers).
    • Touch capabilities – for all applications through mouse driver translation, but enhanced for touch-aware applications with gestures and a touch-screen keyboard.
    • DirectX – harnessing the power of modern graphics hardware and providing an API for access, not just to games but also to 2D graphics, animation and fine text.
    • And, of course, the fundamentals – security, reliability, compatibility and performance.
  • Windows Update, music metadata, online help are all service-based. Windows 7 makes use of Microsoft’s services platform with Internet Explorer 8 to access the web. Using technologies such as those provided by Windows Live Essentials (an optional download with support for Windows Live or third party services via standard protocols), Microsoft plans to expand the PC experience to the Internet with software plus services.

PC, phone and web.

“We certainly got a lot of feedback about Windows Vista at RTM!”

[Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Microsoft Corporation]

  • Sinofsky spoke of the key lessons from the Windows Vista experience, outlining key lessons learned as:
    • Readiness of ecosystem – vendor support, etc. Vista changed a lot of things and Windows 7 uses the same kernel as Windows Vista and Server 2008 so there are no ecosystem changes.
    • Standards support – e.g. the need for Internet Explorer to fully support web standards and support for OpenXML documents in Windows applets.
    • Compatibilty – Vista may be more secure but UAC has not been without its challenges.
    • Scenarios – end to end experience – working with partners, hardware and software to provide scenarios for technology to add value.
  • Today, Microsoft is releasing a pre-beta milestone build of Windows 7, milestone 3, which is not yet feature complete.
  • In early 2009, a feature complete beta will ship (to a broader audience) but it will still not be ready to benchmark. It will incorporate a feedback tool which will package the context of what is happening along with feedback alongside the opt-in customer experience improvement program which provides additional, anonymous, telemetry to Microsoft.
  • There will also be a release candidate before final product release and, officially, Microsoft has no information yet about availability but Sinofsky did say that 3 years from the general availability of Windows Vista will be around about the right time.

Next up was Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft’s .NET Developer Division who explained that:

  • Windows 7 will support .NET or Win32 client development with new tools including new APIs, updated foundation class library and Visual Studio 2010.
  • Microsoft .NET Framework (.NET FX) 3.5 SP1 is built in to Windows 7, including many performance enhancements and improved 3D graphics.
  • A new Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) toolkit for the .NET FX 3.5 SP1 was released today for all versions of Windows.
  • .NET FX 4 will be the next version of the framework with WPF improvements and improved fundamentals, including the ability to load multiple common language runtime versions inside the same application.
  • Visual Studio 2010 is built on WPF – more than just graphics but improvements to the development environment too and an early CTP will be released to PDC attendees this week.
    In a demonstration, Tesco and Conchango demonstrated a WPF client application for tesco.com aiming to save us money (every little helps) but to spend more of it with Tesco! This application features a Tesco at home gadget with a to do list, delivery and special offer information and providing access to a “corkboard”. The corkboard is the hub of familiy life, with meal planning, calendar integration, the ability to add ingredients to the basket, recipes (including adjusting quantities) and, calorie counts. In addition, the application includes a 3D product wall to find an item among 30,000 products, look at the detail and organise products into lists, and the demonstration culminated with Conchango’s Paul Dawson scanning a product barcode to add it to the shopping list.
  • Windows 7 also includes Internet Explorer 8 and ASP.NET improvements for web developers. In addition, Microsoft claims that Silverlight is now on 1 in 4 machines connected to the Internet, allowing for .NET applications to run inside the browser.
  • Microsoft also announced the Silverlight toolkit with additional controls on features from WPF for Silverlight 2 as a free of charge toolkit and Visual Studio 2010 will include a Silverlight designer.

David Treadwell, Corporate Vice President, Live Platform Services spoke about how the Live Services component within Windows Azure creates a bridge to connect applications, across devices:

PC, phone and web.

  • The core services are focused around identity (e.g. Live ID as an openID provider), directory (e.g. the Microsoft services connector and federation gateway), communications and presence (e.g. the ability to enhance websites with IM functionality) and search and geospacial capabilities.
  • These services may be easily integrated using standards based protocols – not just on a Microsoft .NET platform but invoke from any application stack.
  • Microsoft has 460 million Live Services users who account for 11% of total Internet minutes and the supporting infrastructure includes 100,000s of servers worldwide.
  • We still have islands of computing resources and Live Mesh bridges these islands with a core synchronisation concept but Mesh is just the tip of the iceberg and is now a key component of Live Services to allow apps and websites to connect users, devices, applications and to provide data synchronisation.
  • The Live Service Framework provides access to Live Services, including a Live operating environment and programming model.
  • Ori Amiga, Group Program Manager – demonstrated using Live Framework to extend an application to find data on multiple devices, with contact integration for sharing. Changes to the object and its metadata were synchronised and reflected on another machie without any user action and a mobile device was used to added data to the mesh, which sychronised with other devices and with shared contacts.
  • Anthony Rhodes, Head of Online Media for BBC iPlayer (which, at its peak, accounts for 10% of the UK’s entire Internet bandwidth) spoke of how iPlayer is moving from an Internet catchup (broadcast 1.0) service to a model where the Internet replaces television (broadcast 2.0) using Live Mesh with a local Silverlight application. Inventing a new word (“meshified”), Rhodes explained how users can share content between one another and across devices (e.g. watch a program on the way to work, resuming playing from where it left off on the computer).

In the final segment, before Ray Ozzie returned to the stage, Takeshi Numoto, General Manager for the Office Client spoke of how Microsoft Office should be about working the way that users want to:

  • Numoto announced Office web applications for Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint as part of Office 14 and introduced the Office Live Workspace, built on Live Services to allow collaboration on documents.
  • In a demonstration, a document was edited without locks or read only access – each version of the document was synchronised and included presence for collaborators to reach out using e-mail, instant messaging or a phone call. Office web applications work in Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari and are enhanced with Silverlight. Changes are reflected in each collaborator’s view but data may also be published to websites (e.g. a Windows Live Spaces blog) using REST APIs so that as the data changes, so does the published document, extending office documents onto the web.
  • Office Web apps are just a part of Office 14 and more details will be released as Office 14 is developed.
  • Numoto summarised his segment by highlighting that the future of productivity is diversity in the way that people work – bringing people and data together in a great collaboration experience which spans…

PC, phone and web.

  • In effect, software plus services extends Office into connected productivity. In a direct reference to Google Apps, Microsoft’s aspirations are about more than just docs and speadsheets in a browser accessed over the web but combine to create an integrated solution which provides more value – with creation on the PC, sharing and collaboration on the web and placing information within arms reach on the phone. Seamless connected productivity – an Office across platform boundaries – an office without walls.

PC, phone and web.

Windows vs. Walls
Software plus services is about combining the best of Windows and the best of the web. Windows and Windows Live together in a seamless experience – a Windows without walls. All of this is real – but, as Ray Ozzie explained, it’s also nascent – this is really just the beginning of Microsoft’s future computing platform and, based on what Microsoft spoke of in yesterday and today’s PDC keynotes, the company is investing heaviliy in and innovating on the Windows platform. Google may have been one to watch lately but it would be foolish to write off Windows just yet – Microsoft’s brave new world is enormous.

Changing the product key for Microsoft Office applications without reinstalling

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

The notebook PC that I use for work has Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 installed. Office Enterprise includes most of the applications that I need but not Visio, so I also have Microsoft Office Visio 2007.

The 2007 office products can be used a certain number of times before activation is required and, unfortunately, when I tried to activate my copy of Visio I found that the product key had been used too many times and activation failed (the Office Enterprise key was fine). After watching the number of trial uses of the product slowly decrement, I needed to change the product key, but didn’t want to have to re-install Visio.

Microsoft knowledge base article 895456 provides details for changing the product key for the 2007 Office system (as well as other releases).

It’s important to note that:

  • For a 64-bit version of Windows, the registry location to edit will be HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\version\Registration rather than HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\version\Registration.
  • If multiple Office products are installed, multiple GUIDs will appear in the registry – the important entry to look at will be the ProductName – in my case one GUID had a ProductName of Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007 and the other had a ProductName of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007.

Once the correct GUID had been tracked down and the associated DigitalProductID and ProductID entries removed, I fired up Visio, entered a different product key and successfully activated the software.

A tale of two XML document formats

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Once upon a time, there were two competing standards for XML-based document formats. The big bad company that everybody loves to hate created an XML-based format for its Office Suite and called it Office Open XML (OOXML – also referred to as OpenXML), even producing converters for the many business customers that were working with old formats (except if they used a version of Office for a competing operating system). Meanwhile, some guys who like to share things (because all well-brought-up children know that sharing is A Good Thing) had already decided that the big bad company’s idea was too proprietary and developed a competing XML document standard called the Open Document Format (ODF).

The big bad company had been told off many times for not playing nicely and they wanted to show everyone how they were changing their ways, so they made Open XML an open standard and submitted the format to some standards bodies. One of the standards bodies was happy to endorse the format, but the biggest and most relevant of the standards bodies took its time, initially favouring the other format, even though the big bad company’s software had become the de facto standard in many markets around the world. Eventually both OpenXML and ODF were agreed as standards, allowing everybody to be confused by the proliferation of so-called “standard” document formats with similar names.

When the big bad company heard that their document format had been approved, they were very happy and decided that competing formats were no longer a threat. They were concerned that customers would be confused by the various standards with similar names and announced that they would include support for competing formats in the next service pack for their Office suite – even allowing users to select a competing standard as the default. They also said they would include support for a well known portable document format (PDF) that competes with their own XML paper specification (XPS) portable format, despite previously having had to remove PDF support from their Office suite because the company that owned the format threatened to sue them (they had already made it available as a free plug-in).

Everyone was happy. Or nearly everyone was. The European Union said it would be investigating whether the new file format support was good for consumers (they don’t like the big bad company). And some of the guys who say they like to share everything were unhappy because the big bad company was sharing with them and they didn’t really want to play. This made the big bad company very sad because it wasn’t really such a bad company and most of the people who work there just want to write great software. But, now we can share our documents and know that people can read and write to them, at least most of us can live happily ever after.

Windows Vista and Office 2007 deployment brain dump

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

This week I’m working on a Desktop Deployment Planning Services (DDPS) engagement with a customer. It’s been a while since I last looked at deployment (basically I haven’t done anything since I passed the Windows Vista and Office 2007 deployment exam) so I’m revising my notes in preparation for a workshop tomorrow.

As a supplement to my previous post on a BDD 2007 overview and Office 2007 customisation and deployment using BDD 2007, this is a rollup of just about everything I could lay my hands on about Vista and Office deployment. It’s not particularly well structured – let’s just call it a “brain dump”. If anyone has anything extra to add, please leave a comment at the end of this post:

Windows imaging technologies

  • ImageX (imagex.exe) is a command line tool for manipulating Windows Imaging Format (.WIM) files. It is built using the Windows imaging API (WIMGAPI) together with a .WIM file system filter.
  • Windows Vista images are HAL-independent and make use of single instance storage. To minimise the amount of space used by Windows Vista installation images, use imagex.exe to apply images to separate folders on a computer and then append these images to the final image.
  • Windows System Image Manager (SIM) is used to create and maintain answer files.
  • To modify an image, use imagex.exe to mount it and then apply an unattended setup answer file (unattend.xml).
  • Package Manager (pkgmgr.exe) can be used to update both image files and computers that have already had an image applied:
    • When used to update computers that have already had an update applied, pkgmgr.exe can install, configure and update features in Windows Vista (e.g. installed components, device drivers, language packs, updates). It can also be used with an unattended installation answer file for new installations.
    • When adding additional drivers to an existing Windows Vista image, use pkgmgr.exe to add the drivers from a folder.

Windows Vista deployment

  • Windows Setup (setup.exe) for Vista is now GUI-only and there is no more winnt.exe and winnt32.exe.
  • Windows installation is structured around a number of configuration passes:
    • Windows PE.
    • Offline servicing.
    • Generalise.
    • Specialise.
    • Audit system.
    • Audit user.
    • OOBE system.
  • unattend.xml is a single unattended installation answer file, replacing multiple files in previous versions of Windows – including unattend.txt, cmdlines.txt, winbom.ini, oobeinfo.ini and sysprep.inf.
  • To avoid prompting users for input during the installation of Windows Vista, create an unattended setup installation file and copy this to a USB flash drive, then ensure that the flash drive is present during Windows Vista installation.
  • unattend.xml must be renamed to autounattend.xml when used on removable media during installation and replaces winnt.sif.
  • The Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE) is now known as Windows Welcome and is controlled with oobe.xml, which includes options for Windows Welcome, ISP sign-up and the Windows Vista Welcome Center.
  • Disk repartitioning can be configured in the first pass of the Windows PE section of unattend.xml.
  • When using multiple hardware configurations, create a distribution point that includes an Out-of-Box Drivers folder.
  • Windows Deployment Services (WDS) replaces Remote Installation Services (RIS).
  • When using WDS with computers that do not have PXE capabilities, create a WDS discovery image and use this to create a bootable CD for Windows Vista installation.
  • When using WDS on a server that provides DHCP services, enable DHCP Option 60 and configure WDS to listen on port 67.
  • If the WDS Image Capture Wizard is unable to capture a reference computer image, restart the reference computer and run sysprep /generalize /oobe.
  • The Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) replaces deploy.cab and contains updated versions of tools previously provided to OEMs (e.g. Windows PE) for use in corporate deployments.
  • The OEM Preinstallation Toolkit (OPK) is for system builders, containing the WAIK and additional OEM-specific information (e.g. OEM licensing).
  • bootsect.exe is used to enable deployment alongside earlier versions of Windows with the Windows Vista boot manager (bootmgr.exe) – it replaces fixfat.exe and fixntfs.exe (both included with Windows Vista). Microsoft knowledge base article 919529 has more details.
  • boot.ini has been replaced by the >Boot Configuration Data.
  • The System Preparation Tool (sysprep.exe) is installed by default on Windows Vista systems in %windir%\system32\sysprep and there are several changes when compared with previous versions:
    • sysprep /reseal is replaced with sysprep /generalize /oobe.
    • sysprep /factory is replaced by sysprep /audit.
    • sysprep /mini is replaced by sysprep /oobe.
    • sysprep /nosidgen is replaced by sysprep /generalize.
    • sysprep /clean and sysprep /bmsd are deprecated.
    • sysprep /activated is replaced by sysprep /generalize (together with slmgr.vbs for managing the activation status of a computer)
    • OEMs are required to run sysprep /oobe before delivery of new computers.

Customising Office 2007 installations

  • Windows Installer Patch (.MSP) files can be used to produce customised Office installations (and then called using a script).
  • Multiple installation shares can be defined within a .MSP file.

Office 2007 deployment

  • To create an Office 2007 installation share (e.g. for scripted deployment), create a shared folder on a server and copy the installation files from the source media to the root of the shared folder.
  • To slipstream Microsoft Office 2007 updates into the deployment, create a folder called updates in the Microsoft Office 2007 distribution folder and copy all updates to this folder.

User data migration:

  • The User State Migration Toolkit (USMT) v3.0 can be used with both Windows XP and Windows Vista.
  • miguser.xml can be used to ensure that USMT captures files with a particular extension during migration.
  • The USMT scanstate.exe command can be used with the /p switch to ensure that sufficient free space exists in a target folder.
  • USMT can migrate user state using a network server during an upgrade that involves repartitioning of disks.
  • If the partition table is to be left intact during a migration, use a local partition with sufficient free space for temporary storage.
  • scanstate.exe can scan a source computer, collect files and create a store without modifying the source. The default action is to compress files and store them in image file (usmt3.mig).
  • loadstate.exe will migrate files and settings from and existing store to the destination computer.
  • The scanscate.exe and loadstate.exe commands have matching command line arguments.
  • Migration XML files include rules to define what should be migrated and are specified with the /i switch:
    • Custom XML files define components to exclude and are created using scanstate /genconfig:config.xml.
    • migsys.xml is used with the /targetxp switch to migrate operating system and browser settings.
    • migapp.xml is used to migrate application settings.
    • miguser.xml is used to migrate user files, folders and filetypes.
    • If the destination computer is running Windows XP, modify miguser.xml, migapp.xml and migsys.xml
    • If the destination computer is running Windows Vista, modify miguser.xml and migapp.xml but migsys.xml is not supported – use config.xml instead.
    • migxml.xsd can write and validate xml files.
  • scanstate /p can be used to create a space estimate file called usmtsize.txt (it will also be necessary to specify /nocompress).

Office 2003-2007 interoperability

Localisation

  • To add multiple language support to Office 2007 applications, install the appropriate language pack on the installation share and update config.xml.
  • To add a language pack to an existing computer, use pkgmgr.exe to apply a new unattended setup installation file that references the appropriate language pack.
  • If the Windows SIM is unable to access language pack settings in a customised Windows Vista image, generate a new catalog based on the custom image.

Further reading

Office 2007 Customisation and Deployment using BDD 2007

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Over the years, the various methods available for customising and deploying Microsoft Office have advanced considerably and so here are a few notes on customising and deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office System using the Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007:

  • The first step is to create a network distribution point.  This is easily achieved using the BDD 2007 workbench (Distribution Share, Applications, New), with the additional advantage of integrating the Office 2007 files into the BDD distribution folder structure (e.g. D:\Distribution\Applications\Office2007).
  • The BDD workbench will also enable the application (by default) and allow the entry of additional information on the General tab.  The Dependencies tab can be used to control the order of application deployment within the BDD logic.  There is also a tab for Office Products which can be used to configure the deployment of Microsoft Office.
  • To save disk space, additional Office System components may be added to an existing distribution point.  Multiple languages may be integrated in the same manner – i.e. by adding the files to the application within BDD Workbench.
  • Office 2007 is always installed via setup.exe rather than with individual Windows Installer (.MSI) packages.
  • The Office Customization Tool (OCT) is used to create or edit Windows Installed Patch (.MSP) files to customise Office installations:
    • It may be launched from the command line using setup.exe /admin or within the BDD Workbench using the Office Customization Tool button in the application properties.  The OCT replaces the Custom Installation Wizard and Custom Maintenance Wizard tools in previous Office versions.
    • The OCT language interface will match the regional setting for the application (rather than the operating system language).
    • OCT allows the specification of multiple network sources (in case the primary is not available). By default, all necessary files are copied locally first and setup is launched from this cache – the local installation source (LIS).  If the installation is modified later then setup with use the LIS before attempting to locate network sources.
    • By default, .MSP files are saved in the Updates folder on the application distribution point.  Setup scans this location when it runs and will retrieve application settings from .MSP files.  If multiple .MSP files exist then the first one (in alphabetical order) will be used.
    • When editing .MSP files with the OCT, those areas that have changed from the defaults are highlighted in bold.
  • Microsoft Office updates and service packs can be copied to the Updates folder on the application distribution point for automatic application during installation.
  • Settings may be specified within a config.xml file (via the application properties in BDD Workbench) or using a .MSP file:
    • Sensitive values such as product keys should be stored within an .MSP file rather than as clear text in config.xml.
    • The command line to use a config.xml file is setup.exe /config applicationsubfolder\config.xml.
    • Settings in config.xml will take precedence over duplicate settings in a .MSP file.
  • Office setup writes a log file to %temp% on the destination machine.  The filename for this log will be prefixed with setupexe.
  • Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 can also be used to deploy Microsoft Office 2007:
    1. Create a package using the source files from the BDD distribution point.
    2. Create a program for Office 2007:
      • Within the package, create a new program and edit the properties to include the program name (e.g. Office 2007) and the appropriate command line (setup.exe /config applicationsubfolder\config.xml).
      • If the program is hidden (on the General tab) and the installation requires user input then it will never complete.  Similarly if the option to allow users to interact with this program option (on the Requirements tab) is not selected then installation will fail, unless the package has been created for silent installation.
      • If users have local administrator rights on their workstations then he program may be configured to run with user rights; however this is generally not desirable and a run mode of run with administrative rights should normally be selected.
      • The Windows Installer tab can be used to define a .MSI file that is used when clients with the package installed make updates to the Office installation (e.g. install on first use or repair).
    3. Create a distribution point (within SMS – not to be confused with the BDD distribution point) and copy the package to the distribution point.
    4. Check the distribution process using the SMS report for the distribution status of a specific package.
    5. Define a collection to receive the package based on membership rules and specific resource attributes.
    6. Create an advertisement for the package/program and schedule accordingly.
    7. If clients are taking a long time to receive an advertisement, check the schedule and also try initiating both machine and user policy actions within the systems management applet in control panel (installed by the SMS client).

One of the reasons why OpenXML document formats are so useful

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I’ve written before the frustrations of working with OpenXML document formats on a Mac but this evening I found out that a lack of native support for these files can be very useful. I downloaded a .docx file that I wanted to lift some graphics from – of course, Mac OS X and Office 2004 for Mac didn’t recognise the file but it’s really just a .zip file and after letting StuffIt Expander work on the document, I was soon able to locate and extract the images that I wanted from the document! Very efficient.

Of course, this was on a Mac, but the same principle applies for a Windows or Linux (or even MS-DOS) PC. If you can find a utility that can read .zip files, it should have no problem extracting the constituent parts of an OpenXML document.

A few Live Meeting tips

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I’ve just spent the last couple of hours listening/watching a Live Meeting webcast. In recent weeks I’ve found that I’m attending more and more of these as part of the various Microsoft beta and technology adoption programmes that I’m participating in and frequently I need to take notes using Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 on the same PC that I’m using to view the slides and listen to the audio. Today I decided to try and connect to the webcast simultaneously from my Mac (i.e. using a second computer to view the slides whilst I write notes on the first) and I’m pleased to say that it worked using Microsoft Office Live Meeting Web Access (unfortunately the full Live Meeting client is required for VOIP audio but all I needed to do in this case was view the slides).

Although Live Meeting supports a pretty wide selection of browser and Java VM combinations, Firefox 2.0 on Mac OS X is not a supported browser/platform combination – the workaround is to use Safari and Apple Java (at least v1.4.1).

Here’s some of the advice and guidance that I’ve accumulated as I’ve been working on local (via Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007) and hosted Live Meeting calls over recent weeks (this is just what I’ve found and is not a comprehensive list):

  • The Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 Client can be downloaded from Microsoft Office Online.
    If the link in the meeting invitation doesn’t work, try launching the client and entering the details manually.
  • If colleagues can’t hear you on the meeting, check that your microphone is unmuted (the default is muted), that (if you are using a webcam) the microphone is close enough to pick up your voice and don’t assume that your notebook computer has a built-in microphone (this one stumped me for a while until I plugged in a microphone and everything jumped into life)!
  • (Microsoft Connect users may find the Live Meeting audio issues FAQ useful.)
  • The Live Meeting support website features a knowledge base for troubleshooting issues with Live Meeting.