[Bachus]

Excellent Office guide, Aaron. It is well detailed and timed almost perfectly with my purchase of Office from the college I'll be attending beginning at the end of the month (I also picked up a copy of WindowsXP, for that matter). There's just one small problem: I can't run setup with the /a switch. I get an error telling me that creating an Administrative Installation Point is only available on Office XP Enterprise Edition (I've got Professional). Of course, I'm not home at the moment to try anything else or give much more information, but I'll be back sometime tomorrow at any rate. I can say that the Office bundle I received was three discs: the office programs themselves (I don't remember if Frontpage is included, but I don't see why that'd matter), a "media file" disc, which presumably contains junk I'll never need or use (I haven't looked on the disc yet) and a training disc, which I'd just throw away if I hadn't just paid for it. (or technically, paid for the media it is printed on--stupid MSCA agreement..). I guess I can't complain too much, I got both WinXP Pro and OfficeXP for $10.70 total as part of the MS "Campus Agreement," and all I have to do to keep them is graduate.

[Aaron]

I wasn't aware there was an Enterprise Version of Office, none on display at this page: http://www.microsoft...uy/choosing.asp

The Office XP Professional CD you have probably already has an administrative point created. (you will know if you did not need to input your Org Name and Serial during a normal Office XP Setup).

Your best bet is to start on the slipstream process and hope it works out (copying the contents of your CD to the Office XP directory specified in the guide beforehand)

[Bachus]

I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

[ViRuS2k]

AaronXP

i have a slight problem with my office xp.

for some reason it will not slipstream

i downloaded the sp2 administrator pack. I extracted it and went to slipstream it and a error came up saying something about you cant slipstream a enterprize build or something like that.

the build i have requires you to enter a serial on install.
problem is after its running it requires activated. i dont want to waste all my activations so im useing a crack at the moment now the sp2 works if i update from windows when its installed.
but then the crack does not work with sp2 :/ and i dont want to activate it
why isnt the slipstream working. :/

[Unwonted]

There's a nice tutorial on Office XP slipstreaming ---->here<----. It worked just dandy for me. Key in and all

[Bachus]

Alrighty, I'm back home with OfficeXP cd ready. As it turns out, I am required to enter the cd key before installing. Also, I can't seem to be able to slipstream updates into my copy of Office. It gives me the same error as when I tried to run setup with the /a switch:

Creation of administrative installation images is supported only in Enterprise versions of Microsoft Office XP.

Well, slight correction there. That's the error that the SP2 slipstream attempt gives, but the others spit a longer one out at me that I'm not going to type, but the gist of it is that the the updates can't be installed because a file is missing and that this update is probably for a different version of the software. For the record, I didn't have either pro.msi or proplus.msi on my disc. Instead, I'm lucky enough to have a file called PRORET.MSI. Curse you, Microsoft, and you many versions of Office...

...and I haven't even gotten to try out my unattended installation of the copy of WinXP I've got, which, for the record, is an upgrade version... That does bring up an interesting point: does anyone know what files Setup will need to determine whether I'm eligible for the upgrade? I'd like to try to include them on the disc if possible.

[Aaron]

hmmm... strange that Setup says Creation of administrative installation images is supported only in Enterprise versions of Microsoft Office XP. when I tried it on the Professional edition.

[Bachus]

The disc is labeld as Office XP Professional, so in theory it should behave in the same way as your copy..Of course, all theories are thrown out the window considering the proret.msi. Maybe MS maintains a different set of updates for its versions of Office it distributes through its "Campus Agreement" plan somewhere...

[ViRuS2k]

well my office xp label is called : OFFICE10

it has the following files in the root.

FILES FOLDER
MSDE 2000 FOLDER
AUTORUN.ini
INSTMSI.exe
INSTMSIW.exe
OFFICE1.rar opens up in winrar lol could be a cab file :206 Meg
OWC10.??? its a windows installer package.
PRORET.exe This opens the install for office xp proffesional
README.html
SETUP.exe Does the same thing that PRORET.exe does .

===============================================

Slipstreaming is a no no error about only enterprize version can be slipstreamed or something like that.
so microsoft YOU SUCK a** lol

[rstryker]

i also read somewhere on the microsoft site (cant find now) that quiet install for Office XP was only supported in Enterprise Edition.

[Centaury]

@AaronXP
What's the exact version of your Office XP Professional?
I've got plenty of Office CDs here at work so maybe I can find one to create a installation point
I tried some now but I don't wanna waste the time to dig through 50 CD sets...
If anyone has another good idea to do a silent Office install pls lemme no
Maybe the date you got it/it was sold could help... Thx in advance!

[Centaury]

Uhm btw: is there a chance to edit that administrative point? I need to change the key for each machine (of course).
Is the product key locked to the CD or is it for activation only?

[Aaron]

The contents of the original Office XP Professional with Frontpage CD is 448 MB (470,095,891 bytes)

I'm not sure about editing an Administrative point to change a CD-Key. I'm sure its storing it somewhere.

[Centaury]

Sorry, you got me wrong, I meant the version number of your Office XP.

[Aaron]

Hard to say because my copy isn't installed, so I gave the file sizes of the contents of my original CD instead.