AFP548 - Topic: Office 2008 Installer, InstaDMG compatible

This topic has 39 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 8 months ago by lsachs.

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January 1, 1970 at 12:11 am #373349

Patrick Fergus
Participant

Either policy via WorkGroup Manager (preferred) or writing the correct keys/preferences to the User Template would work.

If you don’t have an LDAP server (i.e. OS X Server) you can plug WorkGroup Manager through, try to get one. You’ll make your life easier since you can change and customize settings on all the connected machines without having to touch them. A few notable programs *cough*Adobe*cough* don’t play well with WorkGroup Manager, but the ones that [i]do[/i] are a dream to configure.

– Patrick

April 21, 2008 at 2:22 am #372341

patchsmyle
Participant

I have not finished testing if this will work, but an idea I found out to simplify installing Office 2008 I figured to share for others to take advantage of.

First, if you drag and drop the Office 2008 installer to your desktop, you can then modify the installer. Right-clicking on the installer package to view the contents you will see that Microsoft added a few new installer panes with use of plug-ins. (see Contents/Plugins/) If you remove the contents of the plugin folder, you will not be prompted for the setup wizard or key verification.

This will allow you to perform the install of Office 2008. The initial results when trying to run any MS Office application trigger the First Time setup wizard. However, you get into (an almost) circular loop as you cannot actually Launch any MS application. Each relaunch only re-triggers the First Time setup wizard. This is expected behavior as a serial number is not current installed.

I will post my research on where the unique Office 2008 files are placed. Ideally, one could create a second Installer just to install the serial number(s) as a follow up package.

If any one tries this, please comment on your results.

April 21, 2008 at 2:49 am #372342

patchsmyle
Participant

I have discovered the last piece of the process to allow this to work.

Perform an install with the site-license serial number. In the /Application/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/ folder, there is a “SetupInfo.plist” file. Create a second custom installer that only installs the SetupInfo.plist file into the correct directory “/Application/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/”.

And tada! you now have a pre-configured INSTALLED, InstaDMG instaler!

April 22, 2008 at 5:11 am #372355

patchsmyle
Participant

Adding the follow up Office 2008 version 12.0.1 update is just as easy. If you download the update directly from Microsoft’s website, it is just a normal package installer. Just place this installer after the main install.

File can be downloaded from [url=http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8FE8C32A-6D7A-482B-97C6-42562F089EE4&displaylang=en/url]Microsoft[/url]

April 22, 2008 at 12:54 pm #372356

Rusty Myers
Participant

Has anyone tried the Microsoft Auto Update 2.1.1? It’s an .app so I am going to try to repackage it.

April 26, 2008 at 7:31 pm #372455

patchsmyle
Participant

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: thespider[/u][p]Has anyone tried the Microsoft Auto Update 2.1.1? It’s an .app so I am going to try to repackage it.[/p][/QUOTE]

No need to. As Microsoft already has packaged it for you. Again, from their website, you can download the auto-update update that is an Apple Package installer:
[url=http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx?pid=Mactopia_Office2008&fid=31BC88ED-DF2D-471A-B4B5-66C2A51C8BEA#viewerurl]AutoUpdate 2.1.1[/url]

April 27, 2008 at 3:07 am #372456

Rusty Myers
Participant

Must be my ignorance, but it has a .app extension. Does that work with instaDMG? I was assuming that all programs, updates, etc. had to be in pkg format. Granted, teh Auto Update app does look like a installer, it just doesn’t have the extensions.

Also, I have not been able to get the Update 12.0.1 to update my Office 08 using InstaDMG. At least the Office programs don’t show the update when viewing their info.

Anyway, I’m posting far before I’m done testing, kinda prematurely, but there it is. Thanks!

April 27, 2008 at 3:59 am #372457

patchsmyle
Participant

If you reread my post, my suggestion was to download the update from microsoft website. That version comes as an installer, not a .app.

April 27, 2008 at 7:19 pm #372458

Rusty Myers
Participant

I checked the site you linked to and couldn’t find it, maybe you could be a little more specific on where it is? Thanks

April 27, 2008 at 7:37 pm #372459

patchsmyle
Participant

Microsoft did not do any one any favors to find the correct link to download. If you scroll half way down the page, you will see a three pane section at the bottom. It has the label “Detail” above it. That pane you can scroll down in. You will then see the link to download it. Adding the link to the page again [url=http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx?pid=Mactopia_Office2008&fid=31BC88ED-DF2D-471A-B4B5-66C2A51C8BEA#viewer]here[/url].

Some one at Microsoft should be shot for the poor UI design on the page.

April 28, 2008 at 1:35 am #372460

Rusty Myers
Participant

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: patchsmyle[/u][p]Microsoft did not do any one any favors to find the correct link to download. If you scroll half way down the page, you will see a three pane section at the bottom. It has the label “Detail” above it. That pane you can scroll down in. You will then see the link to download it. Adding the link to the page again [url=http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx?pid=Mactopia_Office2008&fid=31BC88ED-DF2D-471A-B4B5-66C2A51C8BEA#viewer]here[/url].

Some one at Microsoft should be shot for the poor UI design on the page.

[/p][/QUOTE]

Agreed, the UI is very confusing. Sorry to beat a dead horse, but that link is a dmg with a .app in it. Does that work as a pkg? My original question was that, see above…

April 28, 2008 at 7:39 pm #372477

pepijn
Participant

Just to second that, the download link for AutoUpdate 2.1.1 on the MS site results in a DMG containing an Installer Vise installer which is a self-contained application, not an Apple Installer-compatible .pkg file. Confusing moreso because the 12.0.1 updater is a proper Apple .mpkg file. 😕

Anyone else know of an alternative link/method to obtain an InstaDMG-friendly .pkg for this one (besides the more laborious pkgGen method)?

Cheers,

Pepijn.

April 28, 2008 at 9:09 pm #372482

Patrick Fergus
Participant

Can’t find it now, but I [i]swear[/i] there was a MacBU blog post (either in their main blog or one of the individual members of the MacBU) that said that the AutoUpdate update was the only package Microsoft was going to release in InstallerVISE format. The subsequent ones would be in pkg format.

– Patrick

April 28, 2008 at 9:16 pm #372483

Patrick Fergus
Participant

This is the closest I can find:

[url]http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:21Ic2z9j6KYJ:quotably.com/bynkii/statuses/779776467+microsoft+%22autoupdate+2.1.1%22+installervise&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us[/url]

Per Erik Schwiebert of the MacBU, via a cached Google page of a Twitter exchange:

“MAU 2.0.0 didn’t know how to launch a PackageMaker-based update”

So as shipped, the “auto” portion of AutoUpdate 2.0.0 didn’t understand what an Apple pkg was. The first update was an update to AutoUpdate to allow it to understand what an Apple pkg was and what to do with it.

Not defending it, but that’s apparently the reasoning behind it.

– Patrick

April 28, 2008 at 10:13 pm #372485

patchsmyle
Participant

I see now. I had not glanced at the file format and only looked at contents missing that the package was a VISE installer.

So, this means you would need to wrap your own package. I cannot wrap one and share it without stepping on copy-write distribution. But I would use a tool to monitor if there are any additional files beyond the Auto Update app itself.

There are a few out there. More then I am mentioning here.
logen, fs_event, [url=http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19141/fseventer]fseventer[/url], even Apple’s package maker can collect a DIFF output.
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