Microsoft Office Hanging on "Configuring Office Components" In Networked Home Directory en

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Hoping someone here can help. We are running a panther environment, both server and clients, at our middle school. All users use networked home directories for their homes. We use both desktops and iBooks. We have a problem that almost every time a user opens up any Microsoft Office application it takes for ever to load because it does the “configuring office applications” as well as optimizing font menu performance. If we have a whole lab doing this at once it can take 10 minutes to open up Word.

Has anybody else experienced this? If so do you know of a fix?

Thanks,

Eric

[Dave Hagan]

Oh yeah, you’re not alone.

You have to remove a file in the Microsoft Office/Office folder called DoFonts, and then you have to take all of the Fonts within the Microsoft Office folder and move them to your /Library/Fonts folder. You could then delete the Fonts folder in the Microsoft Office folder.

Also, there is an issue with creation dates that do not get copied when Office is cloned with ASR or NetRestore. You’re almost better off using ARD2 to copy out the Microsoft Office folder from a computer that you used to install Office from CD. Or, alternately, you could hand out an already preconfigured Office folder from one of your network home directories to all users.

What it all basically boils down to in the end is that Microsoft still sucks. They should be writing the Mac Office suite to work within the frameworks & guidelines Apple has set forth for OS X applications. They just don’t get it, and I am afraid they never will.

[Anonymous]

Which folder should I copy from a working user? Their office folder in ~/Library? or the actual office application folder?

[khehr]

Time to get this one back to the top of everyones list. I am having the same issues. I have tried adding the .TemporaryItems at the root level of the home directories. I have removed the Do Fonts piece. There are NO fonts in the users home directory (since 80 megs is waay too much to pull down) and I am still having this very hanging issue. It seems inconsistance and it also seems to follow a user and not a machine. 👿

[Dave Hagan]

You could try Network Home Redirector. Just do a Google search for it. NHR basically reroutes the MS Office setup (configuring office components) to the temp file on the computer’s local HD as opposed to the user’s network folder.

This brings back the hope for a better office. Maybe Microsoft will have (knock on wood) fixed these bizarre issues with Office 2008 due sometime later this year.

[kkopchynski]

FWIW, we just rolled out Network Home Redirect in a lab and it has not gotten any better. But it is hard to separate office issues from AFP network issues in our case. I created an Office custom installer which addresses many of the issues mentioned above and we use that on our image and for any Office re-installs. It has seemed to help compared to the original MS install. It may not address the time stamp issues. Which are the file that need correct time stamps?

Kevin Kopchynski

[Dave Hagan]

I haven’t rolled out NHR yet. That’s because it would have to be rolled out to every computer where network users login. If a user logs into a computer with NHR, and then into another computer that does not have NHR installed, Office will ‘reconfigure Office components.’

[kkopchynski]

I created some test users and did some cross testing. I tested 3 labs. 1 of them had NHR. If a user stays within a lab, there is no configuring of Office when changing machines. This is true with and without NHR. If the user who has been in the NHR lab goes elsewhere, they indeed always reconfigure on any machine in the new lab. I have not returned this user to the NHR lab to see what happens. This is leading me to conclude that it is much more important to have a consistent office installation than to use the Office component of NHR.

The one benefit of NHR may be to reduce the amount of time needed for the reconfiguration. Unfortunately we are also plagued by slow server issues and I cannot easily attribute time differences to NHR. And I need to spend my time getting the installations uniform across campus rather than doing more tests.

[Author]

Posts