When you are planning to deploy Office 2007, here are some questions to answer before you try to roll it out:

1.       Are you upgrading from a previous version of Office?

2.       Are you configuring Outlook to work with Exchange Server?

3.       Are you delivering a vanilla installation of Office to a machine with no previous version installed, and you don’t need to configure Outlook for Microsoft Exchange Server?

If you answered “yes” to questions 1 or 2, New Boundary Support staff recommends that you do not create a Prism Package for Office 2007. Instead, use the Office Customization Tool  (OCT).  To learn about the command lines you can use to launch the OCT, go to this site:  http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/0f489f42-4c01-41d1-8b52-3a2a2da8f7311033.mspx?mfr=true

In brief, the Microsoft OCT creates an .msp file that configures the Office 2007 installation for your environment.  Here are some of the tasks handled by the OCT: upgrading previous versions of Office, making general customizations, connecting to a Microsoft Exchange Server.

Once you have created the .msp file with the OCT, you can create a Prism Command Task to distribute that to your managed machines.  Here is an example of the syntax to use:

 \\server\office2007share\setup.exe /adminfile \\server\office2007share\custimization .msp

If you answered “yes” to question 3, building a Prism Package of Office 2007 is very possible.  Here are a few tips:

·         First identify or create a shared location where you can copy the Office 2007 source files.  For Office XP and Office 2003 this was an “Admin share”, and it was created by running the Office setup with a specific switch. For Office 2007 that is no longer necessary. You just copy the all the resource files to the shared location. Users must have read rights to the shared folder.

·         Once the shared folder is set up, take a baseline picture using the Prism Deploy Package Expert (or manually taking a baseline).   

·         Install Office 2007 using your Volume License Serial Number when required by the Office 2007 native setup. 

·         Once the installation is complete either return to the Prism Deploy Package Expert or continue with the manual package building process.  Customize and clean up the package as you see fit.

·         Test the package on several systems to make sure everything works as desired. Only then should you deploy it to your production systems.

·         Remember, a Prism package is only recommended for “clean” machines (no earlier version) and Outlook/Exchange configuration is not required.