[MacTUG] Office 2016 & repackaging

[Donald Duff-McCracken]

FYI I used the Der Flounder method — https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/creating-an-office-2016-15-12-3-installer/ — and it worked fairly well.

Some pros for it are

  1.  it ‘slipstreams’ in the updater packages quite conveniently so when new updates come out it would be easy to modify the package
  2.  His postinstall script is easy to understand and modify
  3.  It is kind of neat to use Packages for a change instead of Composer

Some cons:

  1.  it is a bit bigger than an updated Composer pkg (merely because of the inefficiencies of having the core install and then the update packages)
  2.  It presents the first-run screen (whereas the Composer package behaves more like the application has already ran) — this may not be a ‘con’ just different

I am not sure which version I will use
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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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This email communication is intended as a private communication for the sole use of the primary addressee and those individuals listed for copies in the original message. The information contained in this email is private and confidential and If you are not an intended recipient you are hereby notified that copying, forwarding or other dissemination or distribution of this communication by any means is prohibited.  If you are not specifically authorized to receive this email and if you believe that you received it in error please notify the original sender immediately.

From: <mactug-bounces at lists.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:mactug-bounces at lists.uwaterloo.ca>> on behalf of Donald Duff-McCracken
Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 at 2:24 PM
To: MacTUG
Subject: [MacTUG] Office 2016 & repackaging

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.


------------------------------------
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
------------------------------------
This email communication is intended as a private communication for the sole use of the primary addressee and those individuals listed for copies in the original message. The information contained in this email is private and confidential and If you are not an intended recipient you are hereby notified that copying, forwarding or other dissemination or distribution of this communication by any means is prohibited.  If you are not specifically authorized to receive this email and if you believe that you received it in error please notify the original sender immediately.
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