[MacTUG] Office 2016 & repackaging

[Donald Duff-McCracken]

Background info:
Despite the fact that the official Office 2016 installer is in PKG format, it usually does not deploy well remotely via ARD or Deploystudio. The issue is that installing remotely with the Microsoft_Office_2016_Volume_Installer.pkg results in a first-run startup screen that does not let you ‘skip’ signing in to office 365. See https://derflounder.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/screen-shot-2015-08-05-at-2-50-18-pm.png?w=289&h=347 for a screenshot of the issue. When you run this installer locally, the first-run startup screen includes a ‘skip’ option to not sign in. When one installs Office locally, com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.plist is created in /Library/Preferences. Usually copying this file to the correct location on a mac with a problematic install resolves the issue.

As someone had suggested earlier on, I used Composer to build a package (which included capturing the first-run thereby creating the com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.plist file, and did the updates). This worked fine. Yesterday at MacTUG I mentioned that I was still encountering problems but it looks like my com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.plist file had for some reason not registered the changes that a first time login created. I replaced the com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.plist with another copy in my package and it worked no probs.

So everything is running fine, but I might use Der Flounder’s solution of using a combined installer. While a bit more work up front it results in a package that is easy to keep up to date (as the update installers are simply added to the package): https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/creating-an-office-2016-15-12-3-installer/

Disclaimer:
These installation issues are above and beyond some of the issues that Dani reported, such as updates not happening, some layout discrepancies, etc. Frankly most of the mac users over in ENV have switched over (myself included) and I have not heard of these issues being reported.


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Donald Duff-McCracken
Technical Services Manager
Mapping, Analysis & Design
Faculty of Environment
University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 x32151
https://uwaterloo.ca/environment-computing/about/people
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