Office 2016 VL Suite installer 15.21.1 installer ??

VL is still on 15.17. You can use the 15.21.1 pkg download and then run the VL serializer to get it working though.

Or wait until next Monday, the day 15.21.1 VL seems to become available.

Hi @Jakov Is there an official or semi official statement anywhere on Microsoft making the 15.21.1 VL installer available next Monday? I'm very interested, because we've been working on our Office 2016 install and deployment and its kind of a pain to need to install the VL version and then a bunch of yuuuge updaters afterwards to get the install up to date. If I knew for sure they'd be releasing an updated VL installer soon-ish I'd put a hold on our deployment to make things much easier on ourselves. So, any links you can provide on that or is this something mentioned on the Microsoft slack discussions maybe?

I was told by Microsoft that the 15.21.1 will be released on 5/2/16 but since we didn't want to wait we just updated our full installer to use the retail PKG and then added the VL Serializer. Works great.

Thanks for the post @iJake. I'm just looking into the VL Serializer now. While I've seen it mentioned here, first time even looking at it. So basically, I would take the latest full non serialized installer and couple it with the serializer package in a policy and it makes it into a volume license installation? Is that the deal? I assume it needs to be installed after the main Office install, correct? I'll read up on the various posts here as well, but thought I'd ask here if its really as simple as that.

Correct, the big secret is that all of us VL customers have the same serial # and the VL installs that. So, run it after the main Office 2016 install. Note, it doesn't do any clean up so it expects a non-serialized environment.

5/2/2016 is close enough, I'll wait a few more days.

Has anyone seen if Microsoft Office 2016 suite installer for Mac VL v15.21.1 has been released?

We checked yesterday mid day ET and it wasn't up yet. They still had the version from Jan of this year. I'm going to do another check this afternoon. MS may have missed their scheduled release date, unless it was posted later in the day.
I hope they get it up there soon if its not there already. Trying to finalize our Office 2016 deployment and I really want to use a single installer. The VL Serializer pkg works, but I'd rather not do it that way if I can help it. One thing I noticed is that the license in the About menus still shows as a Retail license, not a Volume license when using the retail install + serializer. Its not a huge deal, but I wish it updated that text to show it now as a volume license instead.

EDIT: We just checked and its there now. It did appear yesterday, though not sure on the exact time. We probably checked too early in the day yesterday. I'm going to run some tests with it now!

I've just been installing using v15.17 without the serializer.pkg. I apply the applychoices.xml file (does not install the check for updates stuff, only installs word/excel/ppoint/onenote). I handle the updates getting installed with policies.

just waiting for the more recent suite release.

Yeah, it should be there now (v 15.21.1_160411) At least it is for us.

with v15.21.1 I am using the same choices.xml file (as with v15.17) to not install Outlook and Auto Updates. Outlook does not install but Auto Updates (check for updates) shows up under the HELP menu and if clicked a popup appears saying

'Microsoft autoupdate cannot be opened' Microsoft autoupdates might not be properly installed on your computer. To restore it, reinstall your Microsoft Application.

with v15.17 the check for updates did not appear in the HELP menu as intended, but now with 15.21.1 it appears

I do not see this /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Microsoft AutoUpdate.app

below is my choices.xml

<?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"> <array> <dict> <key>attributeSetting</key> <integer>0</integer> <key>choiceAttribute</key> <string>selected</string> <key>choiceIdentifier</key> <string>com.microsoft.outlook</string> </dict> <dict> <key>attributeSetting</key> <integer>0</integer> <key>choiceAttribute</key> <string>selected</string> <key>choiceIdentifier</key> <string>com.microsoft.autoupdate</string> </dict> </array> </plist>

yep, 15.21.1 is out, but keeping autoupdate uninstalled via choices.plist works but Check for Updates is visible in the Help menu and it gives a false message to users that might click it.

Hey tcandela,

Anyway I can email you? Had a question about Office 2016!

-Kevin

@kquan yes, email me (how can we arrange this so my email address is not shown to everyone) ?

want to find out why the 15.21.1 installer and/or the 15.21.1 updates breaks the 'choices.xml' leaving out 'check for updates' in the help menu .

@kquan I have a new Jamf Discussion particularly for this 'check for updates' issue, it is # 19932

@tcandela On the macadmins Slack, there is a #microsoft-office channel where some MS folks are hanging out & are very, very receptive to issues etc.

Might be worth asking there.

If @kquan joins there too, then you could also DM each other.

@tcandela I signed up for slack and my username is kquan. feel free to message me when you can! thanks for the idea of using slack @bentoms !!

Is the VL Serializer downloaded from the Microsoft Portal?

We have a few copies of Office floating around in our environment that reverted backed to a retail license.