Office 2021 LTSC Perpetual channel -- Leverage BES prefetch for patch content delivery (BigFix Idea needing upvotes)

Usage and Config Patch
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Currently the fixlets provided by HCL for patching the Office 2021 LTSC Perpetual Volume-licensed ( Update channel: perpetualvl2021 ) will only run the Microsoft Office built-in updater. This causes each individual endpoint to individually pull the content required via their WAN links. Also if you leverage a proxy in your environment, all the Office update URLs will have to be whitelisted for access by the individual endpoints.

The idea below (upvotes appreciated :slight_smile:) is to ask for an action variant that leverages the BES cache via prefetch statements. This would allow for parity with other Office 2021 content already available (Semi-Annual or Monthly channels) and help protect WAN links at locations by leveraging the BigFix infrastructure.

https://bigfix-ideas.hcltechsw.com/ideas/BFPTCH-I-281

From Microsoft’s documentation providing details about this particular channel type:
“PerpetualVL2021” is the only update channel available for Office LTSC Professional Plus 2021 and Office LTSC Standard 2021. The PerpetualVL2021 update channel is also available for volume licensed versions of Project 2021 and Visio LTSC 2021.

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We’ve created a custom BES file which updates the Office 2021 LTSC for Standard-licensed product installations for our environment’s specific use-case. Figure I’d share it out as a possible template for anyone else that needs to build their own version of the patches until such time as the BigFix Idea (linked above) is acted upon.

This file was based on the Action 6 of the Office 2021 Semi-Annual channel, contents modified to support 2021 Standard Volume licensed (and their versions) and all other actions variants were removed as we had no need for them.

This content comes with the usual disclaimers of review prior to importing to your own environment & there is no warranty or support to be provided if the content does not work for your own use-case/environment.

Office 2021 Version 16.0.14332.20493 Available - Perpetual Channel - Office 2021 Standard (Update from Local Client Cache).bes (60.9 KB)

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