Sequencing Office 2010 for App-V, Part 4 – Getting it to your users

Continuing on from Sequencing Office 2010 for App-V, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3, Matt and Jason from 43Tc to share their real world experiences with Office 2010 and App-V and provide guidance on sequencing Office for App-V. In part 4 we look at preparing and distributing your Office 2010 App-V package.

Preparing the clients to receive the Office 2010 Package

In order to enable the activation proxy and the additional proxies for interaction with local operating system components, the Microsoft Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V must be installed and configured on the client. This section will cover the steps necessary for installing the Deployment Kit on the clients.

We recommend perform this section manually on a client PC first to become familiar with it.

In a production setting, you will most likely want to create a deployment package around these instructions to automate deployment to all of your clients using your preferred deployment solution for physical (non-virtualized) applications.

Note: These 2 installation commands must be executed separately (they cannot be joined in one command line). As such, we will install the Office 2010 Deployment Kit twice, once for licensing, and the second to register the Feature Proxies. This means you may need to create two separate deployment packages, depending on your ESD solution, for deployment to production clients.

Also, you will need to have the Package GUID copied from the sequencer in Part 3 available to you on the client. We recommend having this in your clipboard for use in Installation 2.

  • First, copy the folder that contains the Office 2010 Deployment Kit installation files (example: C:Office2010DK_x86) from the sequencing machine to the client

    OR

    If you are deploying to a 64 bit client, you must install the 64 bit Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V.

  • Next, open an elevated command prompt by selecting the Start Button and typing cmd into the search line. From the Programs right click cmd.exe and select Run as administrator.

    At the command prompt, enter a command to change directory to the folder containing the Office 2010 Deployment Kit installation files (example: cd C:Office2010DK_x86)

    Note: Your choice of KMS or MAK must match the choice that was made during sequencing. The following commands are cAsE sEnSiTive and won't provide immediate feedback if an entry error is made during these steps . As such, we recommend you copy and paste the command line syntax in Part 2.

  • Installation 1: Install the Deployment Kit for Licensing.

    If using KMS licensing execute the following command:

    msiexec /i OffVirt.msi PROPLUS=1

    Note: If using Office 2010 Standard, replace PROPLUS=1 with STANDARD=1

    OR

    If using MAK licensing execute the following command:

    msiexec /i OffVirt.msi PIDKEYS=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX USEROPERATIONS=1

    Note: Enter your product key in place of the xxxxx's.

  • Installation 2: Install the Deployment Kit to register the Feature Proxies

    Execute the following easy to remember command:

    msiexec /i c:OffVirt.msi ADDDEFAULT=Click2runOneNoteProxy,Click2runOutlookProxies,Click2runWDSProxy,Click2runOWSSuppProxies PACKAGEGUID={XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX} PACKAGEVERSION=14 OUTLOOKNAME="Microsoft Outlook 2010" ONENOTENAME="Microsoft OneNote 2010" MAPISERVER="Microsoft Virtual Office Simple Mapi Proxy Server" VIRTUALSEARCHHOST="Search MAPI Protocol Handler Host" MLCFG32CPL="Windows Control Panel" OWSSUPPServer="Microsoft SharePoint Client Support Manager"

    IMPORTANT: Replace the XXXX's in the PACKAGEGUID= braces in the above command with the Package GUID value you saved earlier in Part 3

    Note: This command is all one long command string and should not be combined with the original installation command.

Additional Note: If you make a mistake in the above command lines you cannot simply re-run the command. You will need to uninstall the Deployment Kit then re-install. Because of this we recommend using copy/paste here in you are able.

Distribution

You are now ready to deploy the Office 2010 Virtual Application Package to the client. The process for deployment varies depending on whether you are using SCCM, App-V Full Infrastructure or Standalone Mode for deploying your virtual applications.

The specific instructions for deploying virtual applications via these differing methods are already covered in other documents, as such, they won't be repeated here.

Below are links to documentation that will assist you in learning how to deploy virtual applications.

The documents are available on Microsoft TechNet at: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/appvirtualization/cc843994.aspx

For System Center Configuration Manager deployment: Read the document titled, "Virtual Application Management with Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 and System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2"

General process flow:

  • Create SCCM Virtual Application Package (s) for the Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V
  • Copy to Distribution Point
  • Create SCCM Virtual Application Package for the Office 2010 sequence
  • Copy to Distribution Point
  • Create SCCM Task Sequence that;
  • 1st: Publishes the Office 2010 Deployment Kit package for licensing
  • 2nd:Publishes the Office 2010 Deployment Kit package for Feature Proxies
  • 3rd: Publishes the Office 2010 sequence package
  • Advertise the Task Sequence to machine based SCCM collection(s)

For an App-V Full Infrastructure deployment: Read the document titled, "Microsoft Application Virtualization Version 4.6 Trial Guide"

General process flow:

  • Publish the Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V package(s) you created above to your clients via your chosen ESD solution

  • Publish the Office 2010 sequence on App-V Management server

    If you want to make use of the "Print to OneNote" feature:

  1. Execute the following command:

SFTMIME ADD PACKAGE:"Office2010_x86" /MANIFEST \\app-v.management.server.address.herecontentOffice2010_x86Office2010_x86.manifest.xml /GLOBAL

Note: For testing, you can perform the above command-line manually rather than creating a package or login script.

  1. Publish the above package to your clients
  2. Users will need to launch OneNote once before "Print to OneNote" will work.

This concludes the guidance on building that first Office 2010 virtual package. The result of your work is a fully functional Office 2010 package that tightly integrates with the local operating system, providing the best experience available with application virtualization and Office.