How to customize Office XP for a hard disk image to configure a complete user system (309120)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Office XP Professional
  • Microsoft Office XP Small Business
  • Microsoft Office XP Standard
  • Microsoft Office XP Students and Teachers
  • Microsoft Office XP Developer
  • Microsoft Access 2002
  • Microsoft Excel 2002
  • Microsoft FrontPage 2002
  • Microsoft Outlook 2002
  • Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
  • Microsoft Word 2002
This article was previously published under Q309120

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SUMMARY

If your organization deploys complete user systems at once by using hard disk images, you can easily customize Office XP for inclusion in a hard disk image. This article discusses how you can customize Office XP for a hard disk image that is used to configure a complete user system.

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Customize Office XP for a Hard Disk Image

Some organizations deploy a complete user system at one time, including Microsoft Windows software, device drivers, Office programs, and custom settings. In this scenario, you install the entire system onto a test computer, and then you create an image of the hard disk to copy to users' computers.

Installing Office with a complete user system is almost as fast as installing Office by itself. It is a particularly efficient way to configure new computers or to restore a computer to its original state. When you distribute the hard disk image to users, everything on the computer is replaced by your custom configuration, so that users must back up any documents or other files that they want to keep.

To create the hard disk image, you begin by running Office XP Setup with the /a option to create an administrative installation point. You can use the Custom Installation Wizard to create a transform and the Setup INI Customization Wizard to modify the Setup.ini file, just as you do when you customize Office XP in any other network installation scenario. In addition, you must take several steps to exclude user-specific information from the hard disk image.

To customize Office XP for a hard disk image:
  1. Run Setup with the /a option to create an Office XP administrative installation point.
  2. If you are including Multilanguage User Interface (MUI) Packs in your installation, run LpkSetup.exe with the /a option, and then install them on the same administrative installation point or a different network share. Start the Custom Installation Wizard.
  3. On the Set Feature Installation States page (p.7), set installation states for each Office program.
  4. On the Customize Default Application Settings page (p.8), specify the name and path of any OPS file that you created.
  5. If you are installing Microsoft Outlook 2002, choose to create a new Outlook profile on the Outlook: Customize Default Profile page (p.16), and then configure the profile on subsequent pages of the wizard. Make any additional customizations, and then save the transform.
  6. On the Modify Setup Properties page (p.21), set the following properties:

    NOUSERNAME=TRUE
    ENTERPRISE_IMAGE=TRUE

  7. Start the Setup INI Customization Wizard, and then specify the transform that you created, along with any other modifications that you want to make to the Setup.ini file. For example, add MUI Packs to the ChainedInstall_n sections of Setup.ini. Save the custom INI file, and then copy the command line that it generates.
You must set the following Setup properties to ensure that your Office XP configuration installs correctly on users' computers:
  • NOUSERNAME=TRUE prevents Setup from defining a user name during installation. This setting allows users to type their own user names the first time that they run an Office program.
  • ENTERPRISE_IMAGE=TRUE prevents Setup from creating a digital license identification that is based on the hardware components of the test computer. This setting allows Setup to generate a unique digital license identification on each client computer the first time that Office is started, instead of when Office XP is first installed.
The next step is to install Office XP from the administrative installation point onto a clean client computer, one that already has the Windows configuration that you want and one that has never had Office XP or any earlier version of Office installed. This installation becomes the model for your hard disk image.

After you install and configure all the system software on the test computer, run Office Setup to install Office from the administrative installation point. If you did not already set the NOUSERNAME and ENTERPRISE_IMAGE properties on the Setup command line in the transform or Setup.ini file, do this now.

To install Office on the test computer:
  1. Click Start and then click Run.
  2. Type the name and path to Office Setup. You can copy and paste the command line that is generated by the Setup INI Customization Wizard.
  3. If you did not already set the NOUSERNAME and ENTERPRISE_IMAGE properties on the command line, do this now. For example:

    \\server\share\admin_install_point\setup.exe
    NOUSERNAME=TRUE
    ENTERPRISE_IMAGE=TRUE

  4. Unless you want all users who receive the hard disk image to use your administrative installation point as a source for installing, repairing, or removing Office features, you must now reset the source list to point to the Office CD-ROM or another network share.
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Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:2/16/2006
Keywords:kbHOWTOmaster kbhowto KB309120 kbAudITPro
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