What is the best way to run Office 2003 Unattended setup during Windows XP Pro installation? I tried running the command from CMDLINES.TXT, but It didn't install. I need an experienced user's opinion on what is the best way to run commands at the end of XP setup.

You're kidding, right? ....Have you reaed the unattended guide yet? Where ever did you get the idea that T-12 was a good place to try to install MS Office??

Please excuse my incredulity if you are seroius, but your question shows that you have done little reaseach or reading. Most of the folks here have had to to a lot and really don' fell like repeating what has already been well documented.

In a nutshell, the best place to do an install of Office is using RunOnceEx which executes AFTER Windows has installed and AFTER it reboots. Check the forums and the guide for the switches (for office it will be /qn for a silent install) and consider doing an administrative install point with all the updates and SP1 integrated. This method, however, will NOT place an MSOcache folder on your disk, so any further updates will require the original install disk, or you could just update the admin install point and use that.

Clear?

Hope that helps.

I'm not an id***, thank you very much, Mr. DonDamm the Windows XP setup guru.

From what I understand, there is more than one way to run the Office 2003 Unatended.MST file. The guide clearly states that you run the MST file from a batch file. It wasn't very clear on where to execute Office setup, or WHEN to, either. I was just wondering if there is a better way than the RunOnce CMD file, but I guess not, I've already started writing the RunOnce file for all of my apps, but thank you.

Hmmm. Sorry if you took offense. I didn't mean to imply you were an id*** at all. It just seemed that you hadn't spent much time with the guide or if you'd read it you had just skimmed through it. Most of us find that the information is pretty right on if you follow it and that, in general, they have tested it and found out that it is the "best" way.

That doesn't mean that there aren't other ways, of course, and there are several other methods which even have their own forum sections here including Xplode, WPI, etc. Any time spent researching any of them would reveal that T-12 doesn't show up for Office in any of them. In fact, logically, you'd want to wait until the OS is completely in before you start program installations. That's why most things get done in RunOnceEx which was designed for that purpose.

T-12 is okay for things like user account creation and some reg tweaks (not all), and of course, setting up RunOnceEx. I use it to install VMware tools when I'm testing because I hate running into the confined resolution of 640x480 which it starts with. In general though, program installations which make changes in particular registry hives and rely on the built in OS to provide some services are better off running after the OS is done installing.

Office is a bit of a pig and I wouldn't want to interrupt the OS install to put it in. Also, you don't have to run from a batch file as you can do it from RunOnceEx. The Tranform file is really just a series of answers to the configuration of the interface and it doesn't have everything (I still haven't figured out where to make the Toolbars on two lines instead of the default one). Don't forget you can also copy over a normal.dot with any tweaks in that along with macros.

Hi,...
I have a problem "i think" with RunOnceEx. I can´t install Microsoft Office 2003, and i dónt know why. My file is:

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cmdow @ /HID
@echo off

SET KEY=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx

REG ADD %KEY% /V TITLE /D "Installing Applications" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\005 /VE /D "Office 2003" /f
REG ADD %KEY%\005 /V 1 /D "%systemdrive%\Install\Office_2003\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=Unattended.MST" /qb-

REG ADD %KEY%\010 /VE /D "7Zip" /f
REG ADD %KEY%\010 /V 1 /D "%systemdrive%\Install\7Zip\7z423.exe /S" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\015 /VE /D "Skype" /f
REG ADD %KEY%\015 /V 1 /D "%systemdrive%\Install\Skype\SkypeSetup.exe /VERYSILENT /SP-" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\025 /VE /D "XP Codecs" /f
REG ADD %KEY%\025 /V 1 /D "%systemdrive%\Install\XpCodecs\XPCodecPack1.2.1.exe /S" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\030 /VE /D "Acrobat 7.02" /f
REG ADD %KEY%\030 /V 1 /D "%systemdrive%\Install\Acrobat702\acroread702.exe"

REG ADD %KEY%\035 /VE /D "Messenger 7.0 + Plus 3.52.130" /f
REG ADD %KEY%\035 /V 1 /D "%systemdrive%\Install\Msg70\Msn70Silent.exe"

REG ADD %KEY%\040 /VE /D "Media Portal 0.1.3.0" /f
REG ADD %KEY%\040 /V 1 /D "%systemdrive%\Install\Media Portal 0.1.3\setup.exe TRANSFORMS="C:\Install\media portal 0.1.3.0\teste.MST" /qb-


EXIT

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All the others applications installs good. If i install the same office with KTOOL, i have no problems. What could be the problem? - After Windows instalation, can i test the RunOnceEx, or i need to reinstall windows to verify if the modifications are correct?

thanks
snow

read this topic below, Office 2003 can be installed at T-12

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=41967

Hi,... again,... and thanks.
It seems to me that your solution works good.
Now,... i trying Windows Proofing Tools. At the first attempted, didn´t work.

thanks
snow

Try integratin' 'em into the Office 2003 installation. Remember at the end of making the MFT, there's an option for addititional programs to install? I think that's where I threw it in...

I've got another Office 2003 related question.

Office 2003, frontpage, visio and the dutch language pack are all compressed in a SFX Rar file on my cd. I made transform files for each part of the installation using the "custom installation wizard" that comes with the office cd.

At first I tried to install office like this:

install.cmd, called from cmdlines.txt


The archives containing the office components are supposed to extract to a temporary folder. After that, SETUPPRO.EXE is called from the SFX archive comment:



This does not work. The SFX archive extracts as expected(at least they used up a lot of processor power according to the task manager. Afer that, nothing happens. The next RunOnceEx entry is parsed and the office setup doesn't start.

After that the same happens with the Frontpage setup, and again with visio and the dutch lang. pack.

I guess the method is wrong, but I haven't been able to find the problem.

[edit]Forgot to mention the install DOES work correctly when I just double click the SFX archive from a fully installed OS.[/edit]


So I tried something else. In stead of calling SETUPPRO.EXE from the archive comment, I added install.cmd to the archive and executed that instead.

The archive comment


install.cmd inside the archive


This does work, but not as expected. The archive unpacks as intended, and after that the install.cmd file is executed. "Installing Office 2003..." appears and the setup basic progress bar appears.

Then the problem occurs: After about 15 minutes of installing the next RunOnceEx entry gets parsed, while the setup and the command prompt are still active and busy. Why? Is there some sort of timeout period that RunOnceEx used? And why didn't the first method work as expected?

I think I found the problem: in the code above all the slashes are wrong :/. The installer does start, but the RD command fails, causing me to run out of disk space on my VM.