Office 2007/10 Group Policy Rollout Disabled?

[jim]

Is there a good reason why Microsoft disabled distribution via the traditional group policy software installation function?

Seems insane to me that they've not bothered to make their Office suite compatible with their own software rollout system, and the methods they're touting as a replacement are just ridiculous in comparison.

Bemused, as things stand.

[Splash]

I wasn't aware that they had, though I know the plan was to push towards deployment using MDT for 2010 (the features are in beta now). Given that I was potentially pushing out Outlook 2007 using GPO soon I'd be interested to read about this - can you provide a link?

[jim]

The blog that I read:

http://www.gpanswers.com/blog/622-of...deploy-it.html

Technet's guide to 2010 deployment, notice that the GP option mentions Startup Scripts exclusively:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../ee656739.aspx

Mind you, the 2007 equivalent article seems to imply that you can use GP, but strongly advises against it.

Blog says "There is no longer any possible way to deploy Office 2007 via Group Policy". So not sure on the 2007 front. Certainly with 2010 though, it's not possible.

[Splash]

Ta, will have a look into that tonight.

That said... have you had a look at MDT yet? I went on a Win7 deployment workshop recently that showcased it nicely, and the tinkering I've done since then has been generally positive.

[jim]

No, haven't actually.

Been so short of time recently - about 8 different jobs on the go simultaneously - that I haven't had any time to tinker... I had this crazy idea that I'd just push it out through GP and life would be easy.

Stupid me.

[noveltylamp]

I've successfully deployed Office 2007 apps using group policy, e.g. Project 2007, Visio 2007. Haven't tried pushing the whole suite and I do quite agree it seems a backward step to go back to an EXE based installer. Do you have any configuration management systems like Zenworks/SMS/SCCM? I currently push the suite using ZCM 10 but of course it depends what you have available to you. If you need any guidance feel free to post questions to the thread, I haven't read the 2010 deployment guide yet just getting my head around Outlook with three exchange connections running at the moment

[Jay]

If you are decent with vb you can write your own install script

[jim]

MS supplied one in batch form, with a couple of fields that needed tweaking.

It works well enough, but as a whole it's nowhere as near as convenient as the old method. And discovering that it didn't automatically activate itself and collect updates was an unwelcome surprise. Ridiculous tbh.

[Splash]

Activation should be taken care of by your KMS server, and updates by WSUS. I've not yet had time to do too much research, but it looks to me that Microsoft realised that they were giving away for free what other vendors are charging an arm and a leg for, and that they want to push people towards the Systemcenter suite to monetize that opportunity.

Beyond that it doesn't seem like it's too much hassle to use startup scripts to deploy Office 2007, and 2010 will be much easier by using the free Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.

I can see where you're coming from in as much as it was a piece of... something that was very simple to create a new GPO, point it at an MSI and away you go, but customising MSIs can be a pain in the backside at times.

[jim]

KMS? WSUS? You overestimate us.

That's all really. I thought it would be a pretty easy job, and instead it's turned into a right PITA. And I still had to make a .msp.

[loki]

Microsoft want to push you to SCCM for deployments. It's another expense but if you want to do rollouts well it's worth having. It's the same as removing NTbackup for the sake of windows server backup, which is severely limited. They want to push you onto SCDPM for backups (although in this case most companies go elsewhere).

As has been stated get to know your batch and VBScript and you can have it deployed via script (If you're going to use SCCM then you need to know this anyway). It's not an all encompassing solution though.

[spoon_]

.msp in a batch file + beyondexec seems like the easiest way

And I can't imagine ANY sort of business that doesn't use WSUS... Let's face it Microsoft doesn't always 'update' their products lol