(imported topic written by SystemAdmin)
Hello,
Has anyone used bigfix to deploy the Outlook 2003 client? If so are there any gothas I need to be aware of? I am using the custom configuration wizard to create the necessay mft files.
(imported comment written by bdoellefeld)
I’m doing it but have not experienced any big gotcha’s. We’re using the null session share method. This is what my action looks like:
run \Server1\outlook2003\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=\Server1\Outlook2003\OutlookGoLive1.MST /qb+
(imported comment written by ErinC91)
I’ve setup our upgrades to not use the null share method for one important reason - the Local Installation Source (LIS) is not cached into the \MSOCache folder when you use a null share method. This is a new and important feature of Office 2003.
I package the whole office install folder into the task and run the office setup.exe with an MST similar to above but have used a free scripting language called AutoIT to create an .exe file that calls the office setup.exe file with admin rights (so it doesn’t run under SYSTEM user credentials)
This way, if Office needs maintenance or files from the original install location in the future, it automatically gets them from the LIS (default C:\MSOCache)
Further to this, before upgrading, I actually run a customised office removal wizard in aggresive mode to strip out the old version of Office and write a registry key to mark that it is clean. The install task has relevance based on this custom registry key which kicks off the office 2003 install.
It’s working great so far, with over 1200 PCs upgraded this way