Choices file for Office 2011 – where, how?

[Chris George]

I created a choices file for Office 2011, to exclude Messenger and Communicator, but it didn’t seem to work – the build process failed miserably, saying “nothing to install” and bombed out of the build at that point.

My choices file looks like this:
[code]


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
office


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
required


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
officecomponents


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
word


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
excel


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
powerpoint


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
outlook


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
dcc


attributeSetting
0
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
messenger


attributeSetting
0
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
communicator


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
rdc


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
vb


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
proofingtools


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
catalan


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
danish


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
dutch


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
english


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
finnish


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
french


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
german


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
italian


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
japanese


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
norwegian


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
portuguese


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
brazilian


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
spanish


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
swedish


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
czech


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
polish


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
russian


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
turkish


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
appsupport


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
fonts


attributeSetting
1
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
automator


attributeSetting
0
choiceAttribute
selected
choiceIdentifier
dock

[/code]

I’ve placed it in /instadmg/InstallerFiles/InstallerChoices, named InstallerChoicesOffice2011.xml.

The line in the catalog file looks like:
[code] Microsoft Office 2011 SP1 Microsoft Office 2011.dmg sha1:e4687989b15b24eec4d24a3d66cb59952b8c065e /instadmg/InstallerFiles/InstallerChoices/InstallerChoicesOffice2011.xml[/code]
(tabs replaced with spaces)

So… what am I doing wrong? Where SHOULD the InstallerChoices file go instead, and how should it be specified in the catalog?

[Allister Banks]

Hey Chris,

I have a post about this on the mailing list, the line you have for your catalog file would maybe work on a mpkg file, but cygnus2112 reports that the old way still works. That is, if you make a new dmg with your ChoiceChanges file at the root next to the mpkg that should work. Two other alternatives: you could modify the distribution.dist file, which I haven’t tried, or you could do what I do, which is rip the thing apart into a catalog like this:
[url]http://pastie.textmate.org/private/mquert7rzz4fpnwqxwzdw[/url]
You’ll notice I comment out the pkg that forces you to quit any browsers while it installs, and I also leave out silverlight since I don’t have any sharepoint services running anywhere. I wish it was easier, I’ll be moving to either repackaging or having munki doing these installs on firstboot soon, if I can’t get this installerChoices bug fixed. Thanks,

Allister

[Tim Sutton]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: Allister[/u][p]Hey Chris,

I have a post about this on the mailing list, the line you have for your catalog file would maybe work on a mpkg file, but cygnus2112 reports that the old way still works. That is, if you make a new dmg with your ChoiceChanges file at the root next to the mpkg that should work. Two other alternatives: you could modify the distribution.dist file, which I haven’t tried, or you could do what I do, which is rip the thing apart into a catalog like this:
[url]http://pastie.textmate.org/private/mquert7rzz4fpnwqxwzdw[/url]
You’ll notice I comment out the pkg that forces you to quit any browsers while it installs, and I also leave out silverlight since I don’t have any sharepoint services running anywhere. I wish it was easier, I’ll be moving to either repackaging or having munki doing these installs on firstboot soon, if I can’t get this installerChoices bug fixed. Thanks,

Allister[/p][/QUOTE]

Also, doing it the old way with a choices file at the root of the .dmg containing the package, instadmg.bash expects the choices file to be named “InstallerChoices.xml.” instaDMG will take an alternate choices name for the BaseOS, but not for individual package items. This is strictly instaDMG functionality.

Recently, the functionality of adding a choices XML as a fourth tab-stop-item in an instaUp2Date catalog was added, but I personally haven’t used this method. Since instadmg.bash is hardcoded to expect InstallerChoices.xml, I can only assume instaUp2Date writes out this file to where instaDMG expects it may find it.

[Goldberg]

I modified the distribution.dist file and it works perfectly. Directions can be found here:

http://www.officeformachelp.com/office/administration/deployment/distribution-dist/

Marnin

[Anonymous]

I use the old toggle method which works fine for me:
[code]
outlook
messenger
communicator
rdc
dcc
dock
[/code]

[Author]

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