Re: Use Group Policy to Deploy Outlook 2003 and Office 2000

From: Cary Shultz [A.D. MVP] (cwshultz_at_mvps.org)
Date: 09/22/04 

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 23:30:02 -0400

Chris,

There must be something going on with this as I was able - in a test lab -
to create a GPO for deploying Office 2000 to the user configuration side (
both Advance Assigned and Advance Published ) as well as to the computer
configuration side ( naturally only Advanced Assigned ) with a .mst that
installed Word, Excel and PowerPoint and to create a GPO for deploying
Outlook XP to the user configuration ( both Assigned and Published ) and to
the computer configuration without any problems whatsoever.

Take a look on the client computers. Are there any log Event Ids that might
indicate what is going on? What troubleshooting steps have you taken (
GPOTool and GPResult and repadmin and replmon )?

So, in the lab I have one WIN2000 DC that is running DDNS and DHCP. I used
an unattended install with a network boot disk to install WIN2000 to two
client computers ( and put the computer account objects in the OU that I
wanted during this install ) and then used a GPO to install first SP3 and
then SP4. I then logged on as several users ( who reside in a sub-OU: for
this purpose I set up an OU called Companies and then created sub-OUs called
Football, Baseball and Basketball ). I then created a GPO to install Office
2000 to the user configuration and linked it to Companies OU. I then logged
on as several users. There were no issues. I created a couple of 'custom'
shortcuts and they appeared as expected. Remember, I used the .mst file
that installed Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I then removed the link to that
OU. I then logged on as the same users. The application was completely
removed ( but you have to remember to check the 'Remove this application
when it falls outside the scope of this policy' checkbox ). So, there is
nothing in the C:\program files\microsoft office\office folder ( except one
little icon ). I also used erase2k.exe. I then used that GPO and linked it
to the OU containing the computer account objects. Everything installed as
expected. I then removed the link and rebooted. This completely removed
the files.

I then completely added the Outlook XP GPO. I followed essentially the same
format only the Outlook XP GPO was higher than the Office 2000 GPO. In all
cases, first Office 2000 was installed ( Word, Excel, PowerPoint ) and then
Outlook XP was installed. No problems. You will have an Office and an
Office10 folder.....

I was pretty sure that this would work. I am not so sure why it does not
work for you.

Check the obvious things like the Domain Computers group having both share
and NTFS permissions to the shared folders ( where you did the Admin
Installs ). Oh, that reminds me. I created the Admin installs of both
Office 2000 and Outlook XP and on one of the two systems that I created I
installed Office 2000 ( via setup.exe and a mapped network drive ) and on
the other one I installed Outlook XP ( via Outlook.exe and a mapped network
drive ) just to make sure that the Admin installs worked. I then wiped the
computers via an unattended install. I then did pretty much what I
explained above.

I might thing about removing the upgrade entry. I am sure that this is
causing some of the problem. You wrote it yourself.

HTH,

Cary

"Chris Rode" <ChrisRode@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1B9D36C2-DA52-46BA-A5B8-C90F861BBBA2@microsoft.com...
> Cary,
>
> All installations have been Assigned to Computers through GPO.
>
> Originally, I was pushing everything out via a single GPO. I just tried
> your suggestion of deploying Office 2000 (with a transform that excludes
> Outlook) via one GPO, and then deploying Outlook 2003 via a second GPO
that
> is linked with a higher precendence than the Office 2000 GPO. The
computer
> goes through all the actions of installing both products, and even
installs
> the shared bits of Office 2003 with the Outlook 2003 install, but I am
left
> without an Outlook binary, shortcut, anything...
>
> Thanks for your suggestion; unfortunately, 2 GPO's seem to behave the same
> way I was seeing with a single GPO.
>
> --Chris.
>
>
> "Cary Shultz [A.D. MVP]" wrote:
>
> > Chris,
> >
> > How did you initially install Office 2000? If via GPO, was this to the
> > computer configuration side or the user configuration side? Depending
on
> > the answer to that, did you Advance Assign or Advance Publish? I would
make
> > a guess that you installed Office 2000 via GPO, but what you have given
us
> > could also point to an installation from an Admin Install Point.
> >
> > I would think about removing the current installation of Office 2000
from
> > all systems ( hope that this is not too big a number ), run the 'Office
> > Removal Tool - you know the one that removes another 20MB of files from
the
> > registry and such, create another .mst file and not include Outlook in
this
> > one and then create a GPO to deploy Office 2000 ( Word, PowerPoint,
Excel,
> > Access ) using that .mst file and then create a second GPO to deploy
Outlook
> > 2003. Just make sure that the 'Outlook 2003' GPO is listed above the
> > 'Office 2000' GPO. But, it seems like you have tried this and this
causes a
> > problem with the installation of Outlook 2003? That is a new one to me.
I
> > am going to have to test this to see what is happening. However, I do
not
> > have a copy of Outlook 2003 so I am going to do it with Office 2000 (
and
> > the .mst file that does not install Outlook 2000 ) and then separately
> > install Outlook 2000 from an 'Outlook Admin Install Point'.
> >
> > Cary
> >
> > "Chris Rode" <ChrisRode@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:CC84961D-BC9B-41F0-9333-6F37BEF3E00C@microsoft.com...
> > > I am trying to use Group Policy to deploy Office 2000 Professional and
> > > Outlook 2003, and am running into problems with the 2 versions of
Outlook
> > > interacting poorly with each other...
> > >
> > > Originally, I deployed Outlook 2003 as an upgrade to Office 2000
(Office
> > > 2000 had a transform applied which installed all of the Office apps,
> > > including Outlook 2000), which worked great as long as Office 2000 was
> > > already installed on the machine. On a newly built machine, however,
only
> > > Outlook 2003 got installed -- there was no Access, Excel, Powerpoint,
> > Word,
> > > etc.
> > >
> > > Then I tried deploying Outlook 2003 alongside Office 2000 (not marking
> > > Outlook as an upgrade to Office). Again, Office 2000 had a transform
> > applied
> > > which installed all Office apps, including Outlook 2000. This worked
for
> > > upgrades and new installs, but we ran into problems this week after
> > patching
> > > our Office 2000 installation point with the patches released last
Tuesday.
> > > When we redeployed Office to push out the patches, Outlook 2000 got
> > > reinstalled alongside Outlook 2003.
> > >
> > > If I apply a transform to Office 2000 to not install Outlook 2000,
then it
> > > appears to block the installation of Outlook 2003 as well.
> > >
> > > Is there any way to use Group Policy to deploy Access 2000, Excel
2000,
> > > Powerpoint 2000, and Word 2000 from an Office 2000 Professional
> > installation
> > > point, and Outlook 2003 from an Outlook 2003 installation point,
without
> > > having strange interactions between the 2000 and 2003 versions of
Outlook?
> > >
> > > I know this would be a cakewalk if we upgraded the entire Office suite
to
> > > 2003, but unfortunately, we can't justify the licensing costs at this
> > point
> > > in time to do so.
> >
> >
> >

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