Office 2010 Deployment

We are looking into various Office 2010 deployment methods currently.

I was wondering what people suggest?

Currently I am doing it via start up script (ugh) as MS doesn't allow it to install via MSI and GPO.

SCCM is an option, but should I be looking into using App-V instead of SCCM ?

Solution 1:

I just got done deploying Office 2010 to about 1,000 PCs with a startup script and I'm quite happy with it. My Customer doesn't have any entitlement to App-V (or any "application virtualization / streaming") functionality, so installs on the "bare metal" were my only option. Amazingly, we had only a handful of installation failures, and those PCs turned out to be machines that were hopelessly out of date re: Windows updates.

I ended up creating a simple mechanism to allow the user to "opt in" their computer for installation by way of a web page that back-ended to a script which modified group membership for the "Office 2010 Computers" Active Directory group. (This was a K-12 school setting, and I wanted to insure that users weren't surprised by booting up their computer in the morning and discovering an Office 2010 installation starting up.) We set a "line in the sand" date when their computers would have to be updated and most of the users complied happily.

Laptop computers with "iffy" wireless network connectivity and/or AC power were a bit of a challenge, but the opt-in mechanism and a note to users to let them know that they should choose a deployment time when they were connected to a wired port and AC power helped. I don't think we had any failures as a result of laptops with bad network connectivty or losing power, but we probably only have 50 laptops out of 1,000 PCs.

The opt-in script certainly wasn't the most secure thing in the world, but it was only necessary for a limited time and the worst ramification was that a user, I suppose, could opt-in somebody else's computer. (I'd post the code, but as with so many things, it was written as a work for hire for my Customer so I'd have to get their permission. I knocked it together in an evening, so you certainly could too.)

Solution 2:

As a "core" app I tend not to use App-v to deploy office. I use app-v when I think something might go wrong with the app when I need to ensure an app will work without causing me any headaches with other apps (etc.). In my latest deployment I used a combination of SCCM and scripts to deploy ofice and to pre-cache the install so that on deployment day we could flip a switch and everyone would be on the latest version of office in under an hour.

As far as 64 bit goes we only deployed 64 bit office to folks that needed it (meaning excel power users and jerks that swear they need it and had the political pull to get it). Most users are on a 64 bit win7 platform but we were unsure of how future scripts/apps (sql server) would connect to the 64 bit versions of office

Solution 3:

We are using SCCM to deploy Office 2010 and it has worked very well. Most of the customization is done using the 'setup.exe /admin'.

We divide desktops, laptops and servers to different collections(similar to OU in AD) and then further division based on tiers of deployment like IT, Accounts, sales, Executives.

If anyone is looking for Windows 7 deployment, then SCCM 2007/2012 is way to go. It has a little learning curve as some of things just don't work out of box and need to be worked over-and-over again. But the end result is worth the effort.

I used this link as reference for packaging Office 2010 for SCCM.