Reinstalling Office 2003 from Administrative Update

[Fencer128]

Hi,

This is a question for IT administrators. I don't know whether I've done something silly or not? I've just updated my office 2003 administrative image with a new MS patch. I want to reinstall this image on several of our computers across the network. My question is, do I need to uninstall the previous office 2003 installation - or can I just run my batch file and let windows deal with it? This could be a big deal for me in terms of time? Do you know if MS advises/guarantees this will work.

Actually, I've already done it on my test machine and everything *looks* fine - but I'd to be sure this is appropriate.

Cheers,

Andy

 

[Commish]

The office resource kit at MS.

You can create a batch file with the syntax of:
"\\Sourceserver\officeinstallshare\pro.msi reinstall=all reinstallmode=vomus" (yours may vary a little bit)
The switches are explained in the resource kit, make sure you use the "s" at the end, it will recache the install point, or you will get prompted for it if you try to run the detect and repair utility on the client(s).
The rest are used to update the files on the client(s) if they are older, or corrupt.

 

[Fencer128]

Originally posted by: Commish
The office resource kit at MS.

You can create a batch file with the syntax of:
"\\Sourceserver\officeinstallshare\pro.msi reinstall=all reinstallmode=vomus" (yours may vary a little bit)
The switches are explained in the resource kit, make sure you use the "s" at the end, it will recache the install point, or you will get prompted for it if you try to run the detect and repair utility.
The rest are used to update the files on the client if they are older, or corrupt.

Thanks. So I need to configure the office installer to do a reinstall, as opposed to it "detecting" an existing office 2003 installation and either updating or reinstalling it without any extra help from me?

Cheers,

Andy

 

[Commish]

Calling the pro.msi file rather than setuppro.exe will just update the client rather than reinstall the entire suite if I recall correctly. I just did this about two months ago with OfficeXP on over 1,000 machines, it went rather well (via Wininstall service). You can add the batch file onto a login script, SMS, Wininstall, or if you use other software distribution methods, you can go that route also. One more thing, it needs to be run under an administrative account, i.e., local admin or a service.