MS Office 2016 Auto Updater

The Config Profile wont help here, it just determines what MAU does, it does not register the Apps with the Daemon

@HNTIT Your need to update OneNote for users that never launch it, the key is to have the following added to ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist. Config Profile can do so. Give it a try.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Applications</key>
    <dict>
        <key>/Applications/Microsoft OneNote.app</key>
        <dict>
            <key>Application ID</key>
            <string>ONMC15</string>
            <key>LCID</key>
            <string>1033</string>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

@HNTIT As a test form a computer with an older version of OneNote that was never launched.

Running

./msupdate --list

will show no updates.

Try running this command

defaults write com.microsoft.autoupdate2 "/Applications/Microsoft OneNote.app" -dict 'Application ID' ONMC15 LCID -int 1033

and then

./msupdate --list

If this works for you (and I think it will) using configuration profiles, custom setting is the easiest way to deploy changes to com.microsoft.autoupdate2 across your scopped users.

@HNTIT Yup, great advice given here from @EdLuo ....he's absolutely correct.

OK, I have applied a Configuration Profile now to Register all the apps as per the Office4MAC link above and things seem a little better, testing is continuing.

1 Breif question on the Extension attributes found on that site, there is one for Office 2016 Licence, it does not appear to work, and the script when run in isolation seems to just error, has anyone got it to work as yet ?

Thanks All

with MAU 3.18, is it preferred now to set the updates to manual and push a script then?
Currently I have them set to automatically check via config profile.

@EdLuo Have you tried the Office 365 License Extension Attribute as posted on the GitHub referenced on that training site ?

I just cant get it to work, looks like it may have been uploaded wrong ??

@pbowden perhaps you may be able to confirm that Extension attribute script is correct as posted?

@HNTIT

Have you tried the Office 365 License Extension Attribute as posted on the GitHub referenced on that training site ?

I didn't try. I have no need to use the Office 365 License Extension Attribute.

@jwojda it depends on the outcome you desire. If you want to control the exact circumstances when Office updates happen, then you'd want to use msupdate and set the checking mechanism to manual. If however, you want machines to opportunistically update and the process be more controlled by the user, set the checking mechanism to automatic.

You can also mix and match as needed.

@HNTIT can you confirm the URL to the script that you're trying (there are several), and the way that you're injecting it into Jamf (e.g. through the upload button, or copy and paste).

Thanks! Paul.

I was doing copy and paste. I am just testing ia an Import and it looks a little more hopeful

@pbowden No idea what I was doing wrong but importing seems to work properly.

Thank You.

Query, would it be possible to make the Extension Attribute list the users that each activation is on ?

eg
Office 365 Activattions : User1 ; User2; User3 ??

Would be quite useful

@Kaltsas, this is a long shot but have you ever been in a position where you needed to ALLOW users to install updates rather than PREVENT them? We had previousy used a Managed Preference to allow a small group of users to install updates for Microsoft Office (the installer we use automatically disables the updates), but I'd like to replace that with a Configuration Profile. I had created a CP similar to what you had posted, except I set HowToCheck to Automatic (I also didn't include DisableInsiderCheckbox or LastUpdate). In testing I could get this pushed to the computer, but then when I checked com.microsoft.autoupdate2 in ~/Library/Preferences, it was still set to Manual. I tried restarting and then adding in LastUpdate and pushing it again, but it still didn't seem to change the file.

Managed Preferences should supersede the actual com.microsoft.autoupdate2 file. What does the profile look like in /Library/Managed Preferences?

Is the howtocheck key set correctly there?

The LastUpdate key is no longer required for things to work.

Thanks, I do see that in /Library/Managed Preferences it's set correctly. For some reason I thought it would overwrite the existing .plist rather than piggybacking on it.

Ya anything you enforce via profile doesn't actually overwrite the original file, the system looks at the preference domain and supersedes the values in the profile.

If the profile in Managed Preferences looks correct, can you verify the actual behavior of MAU with a login/logout or reboot?

Haha, turns out it's going to be a little more complicated than I expected since I just reviewed the scripts we use when installing Office and one of them (among other things) deletes /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/. So thanks to your help it seems like the setting is now correct, but the setting doesn't do anything if the actual update application isn't there. I guess I'll need to create a policy on these computers to install MAU first (and maybe tweak or clone the installation policy).

It's also possible the Managed Preference hasn't worked for a while, so I'll check on that also to see if I can just delete it. Thanks again!