Office 2016 for Mac v15.13.1 Repeatedly Crashes on OS X 10.10.4

Are you doing and snapshot capture with Composer?

@bpavlov Yup! Same process that I follow for all other installations/package creations. I received the PKG directly from my Office 365 Settings page (https://portal.office.com/OLS/MySoftware.aspx). Here are the steps I took following this.

1. I rolled back my VMWare Fusion v7.1.2 Virtual Machine to my base OS X 10.10.4.
2. Opened Composter and took a snapshot.
3. Copied the PKG from my native OS and over to the VM.
4. Performed the installation from the PKG.
5. Completed the snapshot and generated a DNG file.
6. Opened Casper Admin and uploaded the DNG file.
7. Indexed then saved the changes made in Casper Admin.

I'm not deploying it in that fashion so I can't speak to what the issue you're having is specifically. However if you use the installer provided by Microsoft it should work without any modification. Am I right to assume that you are deploying the 365 version of Office 2016?

@bpavlov Office 2016 is currently deployed as v15.12.3 and users are prompted to upgraded. When using the Auto Installer from Microsoft, the error is not present. Given that the DMG is more efficient with deployments, we've typically used them for Office deployments. The strange issue here is that the same error is produced regardless of which file extension is used. I suspect something is wrong with the Office 365 installer extracted from the page mentioned above (https://portal.office.com/OLS/MySoftware.aspx).

While I can understand the desire for efficient deployments, I would agree with @bpavlov, using the Microsoft-supplied pkg installer is the more efficient option. A Composer snapshot is only a point-in-time capture of the changes in the file system. While the package can include and execute scripts as part of the pre- and post-install process, which create create files and folders, that are system-specific or otherwise manipulate other system files and settings.

@htse Right and I totally agree. This problem still continues to plague me even when the Microsoft Office 365-issued PKG is used. Any ideas?

I see. In that case, my process for that would be to test the installer package on an known good system that isn't subject to Casper processing, to see if the installer is actually working on a known good system. Creating throwaway Linked Clones of a VMware virtual machine with just OS X installation works well. If it is kosher, then you'd have the unfortunate task of working backwards.

Upon further investigation, the Microsoft-issued PKG file appears to be fine. I'm currently testing this in my VM while the DMG finishes building in Composer. I figured it wouldn't hurt running all Office applications while I wait an eternity. Total time elapsed is currently at about 5 minutes and no crash to speak of. The crashes that I was experiencing before would populate either instantly or after about 1 minute of usage.

Worth noting: the DMG has been trimmed down and only contains files contained with the Applications directory. Stay tuned!

Richard Purves has a blog on how to package the VL version of Office for deployment using Packages:

http://www.richard-purves.com/?p=79

RESOLVED: PKG uploaded to Casper Admin worked! We typically use DMGs for this application and did for 15.12.3 and it worked like a gem. #usererror

@RobertHammen So reading that link, there is a Volume License version of 2016 out? I thought it was only the o365 version that required users to activate using their o365 email address?

@sgoetz Yes, there is a Volume License edition, but it is stupid and doesn't properly install said license if no user is logged in when the installer runs (i.e. at imaging), hence the workarounds listed above. And note that removing said files turns the VLA version into an Office 365 version ;-)

Thanks for the shoutout @RobertHammen !

Yeah the Volume Licence is literally just the one file. All of the installation headaches come from the main installation packages post install scripts, as they do crazy things like check to see if a user is logged in and then not install the licence if nobody is. (!)

However if you deploy the updates one by one in a big package then deploy the licence file, you're golden. Hence my blog.

I have the same issue with the Microsoft applications crashing, although my applications are crashing when I am bringing them from bring minimized to trying to use them. The window won't restore and the application crashes. This is almost every time I do this action.

UPDATE: the PKG file does not seem to work at all when deployed via our base image but works fine thru Self Service as a PKG. Anyone else experiencing this issue with the PKG as a part of their base image?

It works fine for us, however it didn't work unless we checked the box "install on boot drive after imaging" (thank you Adobe)

C

We've run into a bit of a problem: when we check "Install on boot drive after imaging”, the machine fails to boot. We get the black screen with the Apple logo, and then the circle with a line through it. When "Install on boot drive after imaging” is unchecked, the machine boots fine, but the Office Apps don't open (report and installation issue).

We're using the Microsoft pkg, uploaded into Casper Admin (9.82). The pkg works fine in a policy, just not at imaging. Is anyone else seeing this?