Installing Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run via GPO Deployment


This article is now out of data, as Office 2013 is not released any more. Please see the steps for doing this with Office 365 ProPlus can be found at http://c7solutions.com/2015/10/installing-office-2016-click-to-run-via-group-policy

Office 365 ProPlus can be deployed via Group Policy, but there are a few things that you need to know and do first. These are:

  1. You cannot use the โ€œSoftware Installationโ€ features of GPOโ€™s to deploy the Office 365 ProPlus click to run software as this is an exe file, and โ€œSoftware Installationโ€ runs MSI files.
  2. You cannot run software with elevated installation rights, as the setup.exe shells out to other processes to run the installation (the officeclick2run.exe service).

Therefore you need to deploy the software via a computer startup script. But this is not simple either as startup scripts run each time the computer starts up (obviously!) but will run regardless of whether the software is already installed. Therefore you need to run the installation by way of a startup script that first checks if Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run has already been installed or not.

To do this you need to following:

  1. A read only file share containing the Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run files
  2. A read/write file share to store log files on (the deployment script logs the start and completion of the installation in a central location)
  3. An XML file to install Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run customised to your environment and the fact that you are using GPO deployment
  4. A batch file to detect an existing Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run deployment and if not present to install Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run from your file share.
  5. And finally the Office Deployment Tool setup program.

Steps 1 and 4 are part of a standard Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run deployment process and so not covered in this blog post. But once you have downloaded the Office Deployment Tool and created the XML file in step 3 you can run the deployment tool with setup.exe /download config.xml to download the Office binaries to the file share mentioned in step 1.

So here are the steps and details for doing all this for GPO deployment:

Creating Deployment File Shares

Create a software deployment file share that you have read/write access to and everyone else read only and create a folder called Office365ProPlus inside this to store the binaries.

Create a second file share that everyone has read/write access to (or CREATOR OWNER has write so that only the creator of the file can write it to the share and others can read or not see it at all). Create a sub folder in InstallLogs called Office365ProPlus.

In my demo these two shares and subfolders are called \\server\Software\Office365ProPlus and \\server\InstallLogs\Office365ProPlus.

Create an XML File for Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run Deployment

This XML file is as follows and is saved to \\server\Software\Office365ProPlus root folder. Call this file config.xml.

 
<Configuration>
 <Add SourcePath="\\server\Software\Office365ProPlus\" OfficeClientEdition="32" >
   <Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">
     <Language ID="en-us" />
   </Product>
 </Add>
 <Updates Enabled="TRUE" UpdatePath="\\server\Software\Office365ProPlus\" />
 <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />
 <Logging Path="%temp%" />
 </Configuration>

The important entries of no display and the Extended User Licence Agreement having been accepted are important, as GPO deployment works as a system service and so cannot display anything to the screen. Also see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219426(v=office.15).aspx for the XML reference file for other settings you can contain here such as updates from the Internet (UpdatePath=””) or no updates (Updates Enabled=”FALSE”), multiple languages (add more <Language ID=”xx-xx” /> nodes to the file), etc.

Download the Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run Binaries

Download the Office Deployment Tool from http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=36778 and if you downloaded this a few months ago, download it again as it changes frequently and improves the setup process.

Install this software to get setup.exe and some example XML files. Copy setup.exe to \\server\Office365ProPlus.

Run \\server\Office365ProPlus\setup.exe /download \\server\Office365ProPlus\config.xml to download the latest version (or the specified version if you have added Version=”15.1.2.3″ to config.xml where 15.1.2.3 is the build number you want to install). This will create the Office\Data folder in the \\server\Office365ProPlus share and download the binaries and any languages specified in the XML to that location โ€“ do not modify the folder structure as the Office Deployment Tool will expect this structure to find the files under during installation.

Create A CMD File To Script The Install

In Notepad create a cmd file and save it to <strong\\server\Office365ProPlus as well. It will eventually go in the GPO folder location, but this will be your master copy. The cmd file will look like the following and for this demo is called _InstallOfficeGPO.cmd

 
setlocal 
REM ********************************************************************* 
REM Environment customization begins here. Modify variables below. 
REM ********************************************************************* 
REM Set DeployServer to a network-accessible location containing the Office source files. 
set DeployServer=\\server\Software\Office365ProPlus
REM Set ConfigFile to the configuration file to be used for deployment (required) 
set ConfigFile=\\server\Software\Office365ProPlus\config.xml
REM Set LogLocation to a central directory to collect script log files (install log files are set in XML file). 
set LogLocation=\\server\InstallLogs\Office365ProPlus
REM ********************************************************************* 
REM Deployment code begins here. Do not modify anything below this line (check quotes are quotes though). 
REM ********************************************************************* 
IF NOT "%ProgramFiles(x86)%"=="" (goto ARP64) else (goto ARP86) 
REM Operating system is X64. Check for 32 bit Office in emulated Wow6432 registry key 
:ARP64 
reg query HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432NODE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\ClickToRun\propertybag 
if NOT %errorlevel%==1 (goto End) 
REM Check for 32 and 64 bit versions of Office 2013 in regular registry key.(Office 64bit would also appear here on a 64bit OS) 
:ARP86 
reg query HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\ClickToRun\propertybag 
if %errorlevel%==1 (goto DeployOffice) else (goto End) 
REM If 1 returned, the product was not found. Run setup here. 
:DeployOffice 
echo %date% %time% Setup started. >> %LogLocation%\%computername%.txt 
pushd "%DeployServer%"
start /wait setup.exe /configure "%ConfigFile%"
echo %date% %time% Setup ended with error code %errorlevel%. >> %LogLocation%\%computername%.txt 
REM If 0 or other was returned, the product was found or another error occurred. Do nothing. 
:End
Endlocal

This will be run by GPO and at computer startup look for the Click To Run registry key that indicates Office has been installed. If not found for 64 or 32 bit OSโ€™s and 64 or 32 bit installations of Office then it will deploy office.

Create A Group Policy Object

Create in your domain a GPO object over an OU that contains the computers you want to install Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run on. This will run on all computers in this OU, so start with a test OU containing one or a few computers or use permissions to lock the GPO object down to specific computer accounts.

In this GPO set the following:

  1. A startup script that runs _InstallOfficeGPO.cmd. A startup script will have a folder the script is located in (click Show Files button in the GPO editor) and copy the above cmd file from the Office deployment share to this folder.
  2. Then click Add and select the file โ€“ there are no script parameters.
  3. Your GPO object will look like this.
    image
  4. In Adminstrative Templates/System/Scripts set the Maximum wait time for Group Policy scripts to 1800 seconds. This is 30 minutes. The default is 10 minutes (600 seconds) but I have found Office installs take just over ten minutes on a LAN and longer if the fileshare is remote to the client computer. The script will be cancelled if it takes over 30 minutes, so you may need a higher value for your network.

Deploy Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run

Run gpupdate /force on a test computer that is under the scope of your GPO object and then reboot the computer. The installation will start automatically and Office will be ready to use a few minutes after reboot. Office takes about 10 minutes to fully install on a LAN but can be used about 2 or 3 minutes after installation starts. Do not reboot the PC in those 10 minutes.

Check \\server\InstallLogs\Office365ProPlus for a file named after the computer. This will have two lines, one for the start of the deployment and one at the end (with โ€œSetup ended with error code 0โ€ if successful).


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Comments

66 responses to “Installing Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run via GPO Deployment”

  1. Justin avatar
    Justin

    I followed these instructions to the letter and when I try to run the _InstallOfficeGPO.cmd manually (I wasn’t able to get the script to run as a GPO start up script), I get an error that says “Files was unexpected at this time.” Anything I might be missing?

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      The blog editor changed standard quotes for “curly” quotes in the batch code, so the code failed to work after I pasted it into the blog. It has now been updated in both the batch file code and the XML example. Recommend either copying and pasting the files from the blog again if you downloaded them before Sept 19th 2014 or doing a fine replace for curly quotes to proper “quotes”. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

      1. Justin avatar
        Justin

        Perfect, sort of. I can get the script to run now, though I get a generic error that says “Couldn’t Install. We’re sorry, we had a problem installing your Office program(s). Is your internet connection working? Do you have enough free space on your main hard drive?”

        Here’s my configuration.xml file:

        Batch file:

        setlocal

        REM *********************************************************************
        REM Environment customization begins here. Modify variables below.
        REM *********************************************************************

        REM Set DeployServer to a network-accessible location containing the Office source files.
        set DeployServer=\\SERVER\OfficeDeployment\Office365ProPlus

        REM Set ConfigFile to the configuration file to be used for deployment (required)
        set ConfigFile=\\SERVER\OfficeDeployment\Office365ProPlus\configuration.xml

        REM Set LogLocation to a central directory to collect script log files (install log files are set in XML file).
        set LogLocation=\\SERVER\InstallLogs\Office365ProPlus

        REM *********************************************************************
        REM Deployment code begins here. Do not modify anything below this line (check quotes are quotes though).
        REM *********************************************************************

        IF NOT “%ProgramFiles(x86)%”==”” (goto ARP64) else (goto ARP86)

        REM Operating system is X64. Check for 32 bit Office in emulated Wow6432 registry key
        :ARP64
        reg query HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432NODE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\ClickToRun\propertybag
        if NOT %errorlevel%==1 (goto End)

        REM Check for 32 and 64 bit versions of Office 2013 in regular registry key.(Office 64bit would also appear here on a 64bit OS)
        :ARP86
        reg query HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\ClickToRun\propertybag
        if %errorlevel%==1 (goto DeployOffice) else (goto End)

        REM If 1 returned, the product was not found. Run setup here.
        :DeployOffice
        echo %date% %time% Setup started. >> %LogLocation%\%computername%.txt
        start /wait %DeployServer%\setup.exe /configure %ConfigFile%
        echo %date% %time% Setup ended with error code %errorlevel%. >> %LogLocation%\%computername%.txt

        REM If 0 or other was returned, the product was found or another error occurred. Do nothing.
        :End

        Endlocal

        I have the GPO in a test OU, and it does run at startup. I’m going to try it on another PC to see if I get the same error.

        1. Brian Reid avatar

          Your XML file did not get added to the comments – you can email it to brian.reid at c7solutions.com and I will take a look.

    2. Jordan Cobb avatar
      Jordan Cobb

      What are the contents of your .cmd file? I have read this article 3 times, and I cannot find anything other than the directive simply “create the cmd file”, which no description as to what the contents of that file should be.

      1. Brian Reid avatar

        Click view source in the blog where it says create a new cmd file that looks like the following

  2. Justin avatar
    Justin

    Thanks, Brian. It’s in your inbox now. Sent from my Gmail account.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      For reference to future readers of this page, the xml contained an invalid path. It read \\”server\share” and not “\\server\share”.

      So a tip is always to test xml files for validity by opening them in Internet Explorer. If IE cannot open it, then you have invalid xml.

  3. pradeep avatar

    how to uninstall office 2013 standard and deploy office 365 through group policy.

  4. Matt avatar
    Matt

    I am able to run the script manually on a test machine but it doesn’t work using the GPO. I have added the script to the startup of the Computer Configuration on my policy, linked the policy to my test OU, placed the test machine in my Test OU, verified the gpresult shows the policy was applied – but the script does not execute the install. I am testing on a Win2012R2 server – have you verified this will work on a Win2012R2 box Brian?

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      The OS should not matter – Win2012R2 will run GPO cmd scripts like other versions of Windows. You need to check the %LogLocation% folder in the script and see if the actual cmd script runs. Maybe add entries to the script to check if it is working or not. If the script runs and it gets to the point of running the Office deployment script then check the Office setup logs in c:\windows\temp.

  5. Joshua Thompson avatar
    Joshua Thompson

    Great information. Thank you.

    This is great for installing the software, but how would you recommend handle uninstalling?

    I dont see the click-to-run setup.exe having an uninstall option and I dont think if I remove this script from group policy it will auto uninstall.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      This is not GPO software deployment, so removing the script does not uninstall the software on the target machine.

      To uninstall you use the XML node in the XML file that you reference in the /configure script instead of the XML node. Full details of all the options in the XML are shown at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219426.aspx.

      To use this script to uninstall you would need to look for a different registry key – one that indicated the software was present rather than not present as this script above does.

  6. Nuno avatar
    Nuno

    Nice guide, thank you.

    I’m about to test it.

    About licensing, after installing, to activate office the user only has to log in with his/her 365 account right?

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      They need to have the licence granted to them in Office 365 as well. See http://www.c7solutions.com/2011/07/assign-specific-licences-in-office-365-html for doing this in bulk for all your users

  7. Nuno avatar
    Nuno

    Ok thank you for the tip.

    The script works fine if I run it from cmd on a local workstation.

    But the GPO isn’t working. It doesn’t start the instalation process.
    No errors on eventvwr and the log folder is also empty.

    I already double checked everything.
    Even placed the computer account on the Security Filtering and enforced the policy.
    All my DCs have the gpo on local sysvol, so it was replicated with no problems.
    gpresult shows the correct gpo applied.

    Not sure what’s wrong, must be something on my domain I guess.

  8. Brian Reid avatar

    I would suggest that you add more logging to the script – for example something very simple as the first line that writes a simple text file to c:\temp or some such directory. Then with the script in a GPO for one PC check if the file is created – if it is carry one, move the logging further down the file (into the check if already installed condition for example). Repeat until you work out where the script is failing, assuming it is actually being executed at all.

    Brian

  9. Rim avatar
    Rim

    Hi,

    When I try to download binaries of ProPlus to the file server for some reason it tries not just download it but to install it also and I error message “Couldn’t install… Is your internet connection working, do you have enough space…”

    I’m running command (with my path):
    “\\server\Office365ProPlus\setup.exe /download \\server\Office365ProPlus\config.xml”

    Config.xml is same as yours (with my server path too). What could be wrong here?
    Running Windows Server 2012 R2.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      Have you checked the logs to see what the reason is? They are human readable and found in windows/temp folder

  10. Nero avatar
    Nero

    Brian,

    Thanks for the great tutorial. I had 1 question. The installation does not seem to happen via startup script. I don’t get any errors in the log. Just nothing happens at all. However, same via logon script runs and installs w/o issues.
    We’re running Windows 7 on 2003 domain functional level.

    I am starting to wonder if it’s even supposed to run via a startup script, particularly because there is an activation option in the configuration xml. I.e. Office Pro Plus needs a user to activate and in turn consume one of that user’s licenses.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      Startup script runs as computer account, login script as the user account. Therefore check you permissions on the network share that you are installing from. It needs to include Domain Computers and be able to login (so it can not be in an untrusted forest for example)

  11. Will Scholtes avatar
    Will Scholtes

    Is there any way to delay this for 15 or 30 seconds silently for my NAC to allow connection? I would prefer to not have a command prompt up in front of users while it waits.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      No – the GPO runs a login script to start the process. Other software deployment programs may solve this issue for you.

      1. Gary Eastwood avatar

        You could always put a ping command in 8 times – 4 pings at 1 second x 8 = 32 second wait. A little crude but would do the trick no?

        1. Brian Reid avatar

          Or you could change the script to PowerShell and use the sleep cmdlet.

  12. Amy avatar
    Amy

    I was using this command prompt flawlessly for almost 200 installs. Then I updated the files for Office and now the .bat file will not work. I get different errors all over the place and I have tried starting over from the beginning of your article and creating new shares etc… The current machine I am on sends me an error code of 17004 in the log that is created in the .bat file.

    In the Windows /temp it talks about unexpected errors of not reaching the .cab files.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      Hi Amy,

      To clarify, you had it working (200+ users – great, well done) and then you updated the Office deployment and now it fails.

      If that is the case, just a few things here to check. You can reply if this helps or not.

      1. If you update the Office deployment on the first share, the directory structure should not change. You should have “\\server\share\\Office\Data” and in this folder you should have “v32.cab”, “v32_15.0.xxxx.xxxx.cab” and a folder called “15.0.xxxx.xxxx” xxxx.xxxx should match. You might have more than this. The date (not time) of v32.cab should match the other two (they will have been created a few minutes apart). The folder should contain about 1Gb of files. You will have one v32.cab and then one cab file and folder for each version you have downloaded. For example a version downloaded in April will probably be 15.0.4711.1002 (there is a May 2015 release as well that 4719.xxxx). There should be nothing else in the Data folder than the above. The Office folder probably only has the Data folder in it. Ensure you have enough disk space to download the image.

      2. Once you update the deployment share then assuming the UpdatePath value in the configuration XML file points to this share, your users will automatically update – you do not need to re-run the script to update. The script is written to only work on machines that do not have Office 365 Click To Run installed on them. Once installed, updates are controlled by the UpdatePath xml setting if you want to avoid redeploying the software lots of time to lots of people.

      3. When you download a new update to the share use “setup /download configuration.xml” and use the same XML file that you use when running “setup /configure configuration.xml”. This will download the files to the same folder that the users are installing them from.

      4. There is a whole bunch of updates and management and stuff that I provide consultancy on that help you manage the role out that I don’t have space to cover here, but give me a call on +44 7973 428875 for that service

      5. Check that the v32.cab file is correct. You should be able to open it and find a hash.txt and VersionDescriptor.xml file. The VersionDescriptor.xml file should have an Available Build node at the top that matches xxxx.xxxx for this version and the version of the setup program that is needed to run the installer

      6. Older xxxx.xxxx.cab and matching folders can be deleted once a later version is on the share (unless you need to rollback, so I keep two versions on a share intentionally) after download has completed. Therefore I need 2GB+ of disk space on the share where I deploy Office from.

      Brian

  13. Corey Callaway avatar
    Corey Callaway

    First, thank you for all the information and spending the time putting it together.
    I set this up in a lab environment but am now confused with the error that I am getting when the install fails. I restart the test machine in a few seconds I see it come back up and create a log file that installation has started. However, within a minute it fails with “unexpected error”

    Sun 08/02/2015 22:13:03.73 Setup started.
    Sun 08/02/2015 22:13:42.05 Setup ended with error code -2147418113.

    I pulled up the logging on the test client from the temp directory and see that the client finds and loads the config xml without issue. When it attempts to start copying v32.cab, it continually fails for ~160 times, until it fails the install. The error code that it gives when it fails to copy each time is 67, which translates to NO_SUCH_PARTITION.

    I checked from the clients and made sure that they could see the file and copy it without issue, I also re-downloaded the proplus bits.

    Any thoughts as to what may be causing this behavior?

    Thanks

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      So the C2R clients don’t “copy” the files, but the C2R service does the copy. Therefore copy tests from the user account are not always realistic to what is happening.

      Ensure you have the paths in the XML correct and run the installer from setup works, then try from the GPO script

    2. Ryan avatar
      Ryan

      Did you ever get that error figured out? I am getting the same thing :/

      Setup ended with error code -2147418113

      1. Ryan avatar
        Ryan

        Update: I deleted the Office folder and I re-ran \\myserver\share\setup.exe /download configuration.xml but this time from the command line instead of the run box. This time my office folder was over a gb instead of the 881mb that it was previously. Went back to my test machine and ran the installofficeGPO.cmd. Presto! Thanks for posting this! I am about to configure my GPO now.

  14. anonymous avatar
    anonymous

    Does anyone else find it absurd that Microsoft would remove their long standing, working, MSI model of pushing software for a method that requires either a user to perform the installation (given they have sufficient rights) or taking ludicrous steps and a three year scripting course to simply push software to all users?

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      C2R is a very different technology than MSI, and brings to the table much better ways of patching the software (delta changes only rather than fully deployed updates) as well as the fact that as long as you subscribe to O365 you always get the latest version automatically or via a file share such as this article described.

      MSI is still available for those who buy Office as a volume licenced product.

      And both products can be deployed using the same software deployment processes (except GPO, hence this article). So if you are an SCCM company for example, you would have deployed MSI 2010 via SCCM and can now use SCCM to deploy the installer and uninstall 2010 MSI. SCCM would still require a file share to store the files on and would deploy from that share with the setup.exe and the XML file to say where the deployment source is and what languages etc. to install.

  15. Cornรฉ van den Bosch avatar
    Cornรฉ van den Bosch

    Situation:
    All users get the Office Suite.
    Some users might later need Visio.
    Some users might later need Project.

    I can create an xml with O365ProPlusRetail as only Product ID.
    However, when I later on want to give a user (a client) Visio as well, I need an additional GPO, no problem there.
    But what files / scripts do I need there?
    I assume a script that checks for the existence of Visio only, but which registry key do I need to check for?
    And which Product ID’s must be in the xml? Only Visio, or with O365ProPlusRetal and VisioProRetail?

    The same goes for Project.

    If I need all ProductID’s in the xml, that’ll mean I’ll need 4 xml files: One with O365 only, one with O365 and Visio, one with O365 and Project, and one with O365, Visio and Project.
    But can they all be stored in the same location (obviously with different names)?
    Because I don’t want to have those files stored multiple times on the server.

    As for the un-install of Visio and/or Project only, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      Yes, you need an XML file for each install type, but you do not need an entire download for each XML file. For example I have a client with O365BusinessRetail and O365ProPlusRetail. That is two XML’s but only one Office download (as the bits are the same for both). Obviously for Project and Visio there are separate bits that need downloading. The Product ID’s you need are VisioProRetail and ProjectProRetail (and also for reference SPDRetail for SharePoint Designer). See https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219426.aspx for the XML reference.

  16. Ben avatar
    Ben

    Great Post! If I understand this right , Office 365 requires all previous Office versions to be uninstalled correct? Which means, the above will no work if MS Office 2010 is installed?

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      Incorrect. 2013 C2R cannot be installed on same machine as 2013 MSI, but can be installed on 2010 MSI installs and earlier.

      You can run the two versions of the software, apart from Outlook, side by side as you require. You can only run one version of Outlook at a time.

      1. Brian Reid avatar

        Oh, and its worth mentioning here that Office 2016 (which is released today) does not support side by side installs. So you need to remove your old versions before you upgrade to 2016 or before it auto upgrades if you have no upgrade controls in place via the XML file or GPO settings

        1. Adam Kuhn avatar
          Adam Kuhn

          I downloaded the cab files and ran the setup on top of my Office 2013/365 install and it appears that it detected my 2013 and uninstalled it and installed 2016. Perhaps it worked because I was going 365 to 365?

          1. Brian Reid avatar

            Yes – you just did an installation. That’s nothing to do with the GPO requirements discussed in this blog. If you did have the GPO on place, it only runs once and does not do the upgrade (or at least I have not tested it yet – that will be a different post). You can use this above to deploy 2016 directly as well. Installing 2016 will always remove 2013.

        2. Wagner avatar
          Wagner

          What about user settings from Office 2010? I want my users to keep outlook settings, etc. I want to deploy O365 click to Run but I want to also integrate and make it seem like an upgrade after I have removed office 2010.

          Will removing 2010 remove outlook settings? will my users have to configure / re-download their mail?

          1. Brian Reid avatar

            Any user settings that would migrate during a typical upgrade would still migrate when performing an uninstall-upgrade. The user settings will migrate upon the first user of each Office 2013 application. See http://blogs.technet.com/b/odsupport/archive/2014/11/03/how-to-uninstall-office-2010-and-move-to-office-2013-click-to-run-or-volume-license.aspx for more on this and this specific question.

  17. Adam Kuhn avatar
    Adam Kuhn

    First: Thanks for one of the best articles I’ve seen yet on this subject. I too miss the easier MSI method of GPO deployment, but you explained why ClickToRun has it’s advantages. I’m on the cusp of rolling out Office 365 ProPlus (to be followed with an upgrade to Enterprise next year) and am getting better with the scripted uninstall of 2010 and install of 365-2013.

    And then, of course, 2016 appears. Technically, as a business proplus subscriber, we are not due for the 2016 release until next year. Consumers get it immediately. However, Microsoft has released the newest deployment tool for 2016. Therefore, I would assume that one could jump to the head of the line and deploy Office 2016 for Windows without deploying 2013 first and waiting for the upgrade to occur. I think it would be tough on users to push out 2013 and then have 2016 arrive a month later.

    Am I understanding this correctly? Would you advise rolling out 2016 from the get-go?

    Thanks again.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      So you could rollout 2016 now, but you would be rolling out the “Validation” branch of the software and not the “Current” branch. Therefore you would be getting the monthly updates or not sticking to the every four month “Current” release. So I would wait for the Feb 2016 release (I will have an update on this blog before then for the steps to upgrade (as its not just download the latest into the same folder as that will break stuff) but try out with “Validation” some users in the organization so that you are tested and ready.

  18. NELBOS avatar
    NELBOS

    I am trying to run this script on a test desktop with Windows 10, done exactly as the instructions state but script doesnt run even manually running it.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      Read the other comments here for some tips. Make sure you have named the file .cmd or .bat for it to run. Make sure you have no invalid characters like quote marks etc. The scripts run fine when copied and the paths changed for valid paths that contain the office binaries

  19. Huy avatar

    Dear Mr. Brian Reid,

    Could you send me the Batch file remove description ?

    My email: removed@hotmail.com

    I try multi-time but not success and don’t have any log file appreciate your article,

    Thank you so much !!!

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      Try again please – it looks like an update to the WordPress template or plugin broke the line breaks in the code. This is working again now.

      1. Huy avatar

        Dear Brian,

        Although I’m using your script and edit the source path with network share. But it not run and no logs.

        I’m consider about network share, because it’s working when I using map drive on client computer. Without map drive, we can’t run script batch from GPO.

        Do you have any idea resolve the network share folder ?

        Please advice me.

        Thank you so much

        1. Brian Reid avatar

          Can you connect to the file share by UNC and create files? Use the UNC as in the script (copy and paste it) to check you have it spelt correctly. Does the drive letter mapping go to the same exact location?

  20. Sean Cuhney avatar
    Sean Cuhney

    Brian,
    Hi
    I am deploying Office 365 using LANDesk deployment tool. I have the.bat file pointing to the .xml file and I’m running the install of Office 365 successfully. The issues I’m running into are the following:
    1. After a successful install of Office 365 LANDesk still says Stage = Installing Status= Working (I made the .xml file set to BASIC so I could see the progress of the install. I called LANDesk and they said that due to OfficeClickToRun.exe is still running that the LANDesk Status will continue to show “Installing”??
    2. I thought that Office 365 and Office 2010 can run side by side. What my organization would like to do in the begging stages of this roll-out would like the users to be able to revert back and be able to use Office 2010 apps. What I am running into is that when Office 365 is installed Office 2010 becomes corrupted with the “Microsoft Outlook has Stopped Working” and doing a repair works but I can’t do that for the entire organization. Is there anything to fix that either on the deployment of Office 365 or after where I wouldn’t have to logon to each users machine and run repair?

    Thank you.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      1. Correct – the C2R service is always running, therefore you cannot use that to determine the status of the install.
      2. Office 365 ProPlus is now version 2016 (see other blog post). The 2016 version cannot coexist with 2010 installed on the same PC.

  21. ronak avatar
    ronak

    Brian,

    great tutorial, appreciated your help. everything working fine.
    just one question, is there any way to perform configuration file for both version in one go (32 bit and 64 bit).
    it would be grateful if you navigate me on this.

    Many thanks

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      No this is not possible. You need two different configuration files. One with OfficeClientEdition=”32″ and the other with OfficeClientEdition=”64″ in it. All other settings can be the same, but you need two files as this is a core setting of the file.

      1. ronak avatar
        ronak

        Brian

        thanks for your quick reply on this.
        so if i am understand you correctly i need to create two folder for each version (32 and 64 just configuration file different, everything remain same)

        if wrong please navigate me to right direction.

  22. HB avatar
    HB

    Couple questions
    1) Can this tool steam the download instead of storing the binary files onto the share? I beleive it can
    2) How do I update the configuration file to include both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Office, depending on the version the computer has?

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      No, this is for downloading the binaries to a share and deploying from the share. If you want to stream the install with no settings control then install directly from the Office 365 portal to the users computer.

      You need two different installation locations for 32 bit and 64 bit. Ideally, as you can only install one of these on a PC, pick one and deploy that everywhere. You do not need to install the 64 bit version on 64 bit machines. The 32 bit version works fine unless you need the 64 bit version (for example for massive spreadsheets). The 64 bit version will of course not run on 32 bit computers anyway.

  23. Paul avatar
    Paul

    Hi Brian – Are admin rights necessary for the current logged on user?

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      Yes, unless running it via Computer GPO scripting.

  24. Peter avatar

    Hi, Nice article. We have an installation process setup just about the same as your guide. (setup with the aid of a MS engineer a few years ago)
    Now, we are trying to upgrade from office 2013 to office 2016 CTR. On some machines the setup.exe and xml file works ok. removes the older version and installs the newer one. However on some machines we get error 17004 and others sometimes a 17002.
    If we run the same batch file as a logged on user with admin privs on the PC. it all works.
    Help?

    Peter

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      17004 is failure to stop service and 17002 is about finding the domain controller.

  25. Dev avatar
    Dev

    hi !

    for my own, the officeproplus.exe process is running but in low priority… adter 1-3 hours it sopped and nothing get installed..
    do you have an idea ?

    thanks

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      Have checked the logs for the installer (not the GPO log that the script provides)? There must be references to these in these comments or in the 2013 version of this post, as the logs are the same and found in windows\temp

  26. Anna avatar

    Awesome post, thanks for sharing.

  27. Matt avatar
    Matt

    Could this script still be used today? I attempted it, it works just by running the Script manually but it won’t deploy via GPO.

    1. Brian Reid avatar

      To the best of my knowledge, yes – this will still work. You might need to tweak the bit of the script that detects if it is installed or not. Endpoint Manager is much better for this.

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