Office 2008 for InstaDMG Tutorial

[dead2sin]

I recently decided to start over on my Office 2008 package (I was making a custom updated .pkg for it using Composer, but I decided it
wasn’t the best way to do it).

Here is what I came up with!

You will need the follow installers:

Office 2008 SP2 (This should be obtainable from Microsoft via MSDN or other channels perhaps).
Office 2008 12.2.5 Update – (Found here: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx )
Mosen’s OfficeOfficeUpdate.app – https://www.afp548.com/filemgmt/index.php?id=84&comments=1

As well as the following Settings from an Office 2008 install that has already been set up for your organziation with generic user info:

/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.setupassistant.plist
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Office 2008 First Run

For the Office 2008 Installers, the process is very quick and painless.

1. Mount the Office 2008 SP2 ISO and dump the Office Installer.mpkg into the InstaUp2DatePackages folder.
2. Mount the Office 2008 12.2.5 Update and drag the update into the same folder at PatchOfficeUpdate.app.
3. Drag the Office 2008 12.2.5 update onto PatchOfficeUpdate.app and it will modify it for use with InstaDMG.
4. Place the Office 2008 12.2.5 update into the InstaUp2DatePackages folder.
5. Add The Office Installer.mpkg as well as the Office update to a InstaUp2Date catalog of your choice.

The settings:
Note: The settings can be delivered using a package like I outline below, or by using Open Directory with MCX or even local MCX. It doesn’t really matter how the settings get there, just so that they are present.

1. Make a package to deliver the settings referenced above. All the ~/Library/Preferences stuff needs to go to the User Template (/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences)
2. For the OfficePID.plist, if you want to customize office for each user, edit the file, delete its contents and then make sure that the permissions on the file deny access to it to everyone (chmod 000). If you just want generic info for first/last name just edit the file and deliver it as is.
3. The last part that I choice to do for our organization is to customize the First/Last name that shows up for each user. To do that we will use a first run only login script for each user.
4. Deliver a launchd item to the User Template location ‘/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/LaunchAgents/com.company.personalizeoffice.plist’
5. Make the content of that file as foillows:
[Code]


Label
com.company.personalizeoffice
ProgramArguments

/Library/Scripts/company/personalizeoffice.sh

QueueDirectories

RunAtLoad
WatchPaths

[/code]
6. Then we need the script itself. I use Active Directory for logging in, so the Realname gets set by whatever info is in AD. You will most likely need to tweak this script to work in your environment. The script goes in /Library/Scripts/company/personalizeoffice.sh and it has the following contents:
[code]
#!/bin/bash
username=$(whoami)
firstname=$(dscl . read /Users/$username RealName | awk ‘ NR > 1 {print $2}’)
lastname=$(dscl . read /Users/$username RealName | awk ‘ NR > 1 {print $1}’ | tr -d ‘,’)

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c “Set :1000 ‘$firstname $lastname'” ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office\ 2008/Microsoft\ Office\ 2008\ Settings.plist

rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/edu.company.personalizeoffice.plist
[/code]
The script will pull the RealName using dscl, then try to grab the first and last name and store them in a variable. Then, using PlistBuddy we set the first and last name in the Office Settings file for the user. Finally, the script deletes the LaunchAgent so that it does not run again.

Thats about it! So long as you have all those settings files in place via either a Package in InstaDMG or via MCX, you should be set. Office will open without any first run screens or bugging of any sort.

[Allister Banks]

Hey dead2sin,
Totally awesome, thanks so much. I’m testing all this stuff soon, and
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THATS HOLY, PLEASE SHARE YOUR PACKAGE(if you think it can be made generic enough)!
DO WANT!
Someone should also package up the prefs to insert into Firefox’s app bundle following Mr. Neagle’s instructions too,
managingosx.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/firefox-default-settings-revisited/
the more we collaborate on this stuff the less translation from vendor to enterprise we’ll all need to do. Thanks again!

Allister

[dead2sin]

Sure, here you go. I’ve put the contents of my OfficeSettings.pkg into a .dmg file so you can see what I am putting in place and what type of stuff the files contain.

[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11466/GenericOfficeSettings.dmg.zip[/url]

Enjoy!

Nate

[Brigandy]

[b]IMPORTANT:[/b]

Mosen patched Office 2008 updates [u]DO NOT WORK[/u] with Mac OS X 10.5.x. The user will receive the following error:

[b]” The install failed (The following install step failed: run preflight script for Quit Microsoft Applications. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.)”[/b]

Please be aware that the tutorial (above) “[u]only[/u]” works with Mac OS X 10.6.x.

[Allister Banks]

Hey Brigandy,

Please feel free to give feedback on dead2sin’s guide, he’s been great about keeping it (and other topics) updated here:
[url]http://www.osxdeployment.info/wiki/Office_2008_Settings[/url]
I’ve made an account over there so I can join in on the ‘Talk’ page, but adding that footnote here as well is great. Personally, I just tried to use the above login script and think it put the first and $lastname variables in the wrong order, but I’ll test it and leave a comment over there. Thanks,

Allister

[dead2sin]

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

Please feel free to give feedback on dead2sin’s guide, he’s been great about keeping it (and other topics) updated here:
[url]http://www.osxdeployment.info/wiki/Office_2008_Settings[/url]
I’ve made an account over there so I can join in on the ‘Talk’ page, but adding that footnote here as well is great. Personally, I just tried to use the above login script and think it put the first and $lastname variables in the wrong order, but I’ll test it and leave a comment over there. Thanks,

Allister[/p][/QUOTE]

That is expected 🙂 That login script is custom to my specific AD environment, but it can give you a good idea of how it could be done. Our AD does last, first, so I had to reverse it in the script for it to show up properly.

Nate

[dead2sin]

I updated the InstaDMG Guide with that warning in the Office 2008 section.

Nate

[mgb123]

Since 12.2.7 and Entourage Web Services updates have come out since this post was first written -what’s the appropriate way to update? EWS requires 12.2.7 – but 12.2.7 doesn’t require 12.2.5.

So- drop in 12.2.7 and EWS updates, and run the patcher on them both?

[Allister Banks]

Hey mgb,

Just so someone’s replying to you, I wanted to unfortunately say… I am not sure. You should need the patcher droplet for 12.2.7, but I am unsure of the utility of the EWS update, I don’t have any backends that tie into it. Please let us know your findings after you experiment. Thanks,

Allister

[mgb123]

Totally successful with the EWS version. Drag and drop the Entourage EWS updater on, and blammo- success! (yes you have to say or it won’t work!)

So 3 parts:

-Office 2008 SP 2 installer
-12.2.7 Update
-EWS Update

All dragged on to the Office patcher, and then installed in that order.

[Author]

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