Office 2007 Customisation Tool

August 5th, 2009

Office Customization Tool

You use the Office Customization Tool (OCT) to customize an installation of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. You run the OCT by typing setup.exe /admin on the command line.

When you run the OCT, you choose whether to create a new Setup customization file or open an existing one. If you are creating a new file, the OCT displays a list of the products available on the network installation point. You must select a single product that you want to customize.

Note  The 2007 Office release requires version 3.1 or later of Windows Installer on all computers running Office including the computer you use to run the OCT. For more information about Windows Installer 3.1, including where to obtain it, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 893803.

Using the OCT, you customize Office and save your customizations in a Setup customization file (MSP file) and then place the file in the Updates folder on the network installation point. When you install Office, Setup looks for a Setup customization file in the Updates folder and, if found, applies those customizations. If you put the customization file somewhere other than the Updates folder, you can use the Setup command-line option /adminfile to specify the fully qualified path to the file; for example, setup.exe /adminfile \\server\share\mychanges\custom.msp.

Note  If you use a folder other than the Updates folder for your customization files, you can specify its location in the config.xml file using the SUpdateLocation attribute of the SetupUpdates element. For more information, see Config.xml file in the 2007 Office system in the 2007 Microsoft Office Resource Kit.

You also can use a Setup customization file to change an existing installation. Because a Setup customization file is an expanded form of a Windows Installer MSP file (.msp file extension), you apply the customization file to the user’s computer just as you would a software update, and the user’s existing Office installation is updated with your customizations. For example, if you change the installation states of some features to Not Available and then apply the resulting customization file to an existing installation of Office, those features will be removed from the user’s computer.

There are some options in the OCT, however, that are applicable only on a new installation of Office. These options are identified in the OCT and in the OCT Help file. For example, you can use the INSTALLLOCATION element to specify the folder where Office is installed on the user’s computer; if a customization file is applied to an existing installation, however, the INSTALLLOCATION element is ignored (you need to uninstall and reinstall Office to change the installation location).

Select Save on the File menu to save the Setup customization file before you exit the OCT.

The OCT consists of four major sections, each of which is divided into a number of pages containing customizable options.

  • Setup – Specify the default organization name, installation location, and additional installation sources; set the product key; accept the license agreement; set the display level; choose which previous versions of Office to remove; define custom programs to run during installation; customize Office security settings; and set Setup properties.
  • Features – Set default user options and choose which features to install.
  • Additional content – Add or remove custom files, registry entries, and shortcuts.
  • Outlook – Customize the default Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 profile and set Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Exchange 2007 options.

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Exchange 2007 Public Folders

June 27th, 2008

To view current permissions on a public folder:
Get-PublicFolderClientPermission -Identity “\FOLDER NAME HERE”

To view current permissions for a particular user:
Get-PublicFolderClientPermission -Identity “\FOLDER NAME HERE” -User USERNAME

To add a new permission for a user:
Add-PublicFolderClientPermission -Identity “\FOLDER NAME HERE” -User USERNAME -AccessRights PublishingEditor

You can view definitions of permissions and obtain more information at this URL: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998834(EXCHG.80).aspx

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When reconnecting to a non-existant host, Shadowprotect takes a long time to fail

June 1st, 2008

Because Shadowprotect uses a method known as DCOM in order to connect to each Windows service it “manages” (and by manage I use that loosely until Version 4.0), the DCOM connection needs to time out before the connection fails as it were.

There is a solution to this, and that is to go to the registry (usual warning about backups first if you’re butter fingered) at this location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ShadowStor\ShadowProtect\nodes

and to delete the value within the LastConnected REG_SZ key.

 

Just make sure Shadowprotect is shut down first, either gracefully or forced.

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Brightstor running within a VMware virtual machine fails a network backup or runs slowly

June 1st, 2008

VMware is a virtualisation technology allowing server or desktop consolidation on modern hardware.  Unfortunately, some software engines written before VMware was popular still wish to use antiquated network calls in order to complete their tasks.

One of these programs is Brightstor, which – if you experience network slowness or job failures – needs some registry love in order to work correctly.  Frequent users of Brightstor will know the pain, and the problem is made worse using network switches that seem to make the issue worse (i.e. Linksys or Dlink).

To correct the problem, you need to go to the registry at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ComputerAssociates\BrightStor ARCserve Backup\ClientAgent\Parameters

and adjust the following registry keys:

UseAsyncIO change from 1 to 0
SetWSSendBuffSize from X to 1
SetWSTCPnoDelay from 1 to 0
MaxSendPacketSize from X to 48

Re-run your backup as required, and typically all of your problems will go away.

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Microsoft Money Deluxe won’t update

June 1st, 2008

As part of my TechNet subscription, Microsoft Money is an inclusion.  I had a play with it recently, and despite the US-centric tendencies of the program (to date, Microsoft still hasn’t announced a globalised version of the program) it works pretty well.

That is, once you have it installed and updated.

There is an issue with the update procedure and Windows Vista.  If you’re uninstalled, reinstalled and still can’t update the thing, try the following:

1.  Uninstall your version of Money, remembering to keep your data file safe
2.  Reboot your PC
3.  Navigate to C:\Program Files and delete the Money Plus directory
4.  Re-install your software.

The issue is caused by the MNYCoreFiles directory which is usually hidden.  There are some nasty routines on the Internet to delete this folder, but there are numerous reports also which indicate the deletion causes bigger issues with mismatches executables.

 

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Installing Windows Server 2003 on an A-bit IC7 (or IC7-G) motherboard

June 1st, 2008

Unfortunately due to the absence of SATA drivers en-masse when Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 came out, a vast majority of residential (aka consumer) motherboards fail to detect the hard drive when attempting to install these operating systems.  This issue isn’t new, it’s quite common and there are various ways of dealing with it.

One method I have found effective since the first time I tried it was using nLite.  This program will extract the good bits from your Windows CD (which unfortunately is the entire lot) and give you a set of dialog boxes to allow you to inject drivers into the CD installation.

You will need to ensure that you have a version of Microsoft .Net 2.0 (preferably the latest service pack for it) in order to use the software.

Essentially, you need to perform the following:

1.  Obtain from either your motherboard manufacturer (e.g. A-bit, Asus) or hardware vendor (e.g. Intel, AMD) the drivers for your storage controller.  For the IC7 (or IC7-G), you just need to find a version of the Storage Matrix drivers for the ICH5.  Extract the contents of these drivers somewhere on your hard drive (C:\Temp\Drivers) and ensure it contains the usual .sys, txtsetup.oem and equivalent files.

2.  Install nLite and configure it to capture your Windows CD.  It will cache (copy) the contents of it to a local folder, so nominate a drive with space.

3. Ensure that you tick the Drivers button as well as Bootable CD

4. On the Drivers page, you will need to insert the folder where you stored your files (hint: click insert!).

5. Press Finish, and it will begin burning your new CD.

That’s all there is to it.

You can check this site out if you need a graphical walkthrough.

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Alter (or remove) the Common Feeds for Windows Vista

June 1st, 2008

Windows Vista has popularised a notion that feeds are stored centrally and called upon by a range of programs.  Unfortunately, Microsoft decided to force upon its users a couple of default feeds that mean everytime you setup or configure a feed client (be that Outlook, Live or otherwise) those feeds are automatically imported.

Not so great.

To delete them, the easiest method is to open Internet Explorer, press ALT+C and then press the Feeds button.  From there, you can delete them as needed.

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