Looking for Office 2011 SP1 deployment suggestions

[#1]

I'm getting ready to deploy Service Pack 1 for Office 2011 and I'm running into a couple obstacles. I've listed them below to see if any members of this listserv has suggestions:

* It's really big. From a remote location it might take an hour to download and execute

* All Office Applications and Safari shouldn't be running in the background. Our users are very likely to have one or more of those application always running a particular system.

* I cannot find a update package for Office 2011 Communicator 13.1.1. Our users aren't admins so they can't update it themselves.

[golbiga]

Well you could cache the installer to your machines and then when you know that all of them have it, do a login policy to install the cached installer. The updates will take a few minutes so you might want to use jamfhelper to post a message. If you run Microsoft AutoUpdate and just download, you can find the installer in your user folder under /Library/Caches/TemporaryItems.

Thanks
Allen

[RobertHammen]

On May 18, 2011, at 10:25 AM, Roll, Matthew - Beltsville, MD wrote: I’m getting ready to deploy Service Pack 1 for Office 2011 and I’m running into a couple obstacles. I’ve listed them below to see if any members of this listserv has suggestions: · It’s really big. From a remote location it might take an hour to download and execute

If you're using Casper 8.1 (for its improved reliability), configure the policy to download via http (resumable), and cache it. Use a second policy to install the cached updater. Could even make that a Self Service policy (so users would have to go "get" it).

· All Office Applications and Safari shouldn’t be running in the background. Our users are very likely to have one or more of those application always running a particular system.

Or, re-package Office 2011 and deploy the updated components yourself. I'd be certain to nuke /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011 first, however.

· I cannot find a update package for Office 2011 Communicator 13.1.1. Our users aren’t admins so they can’t update it themselves.

Download the package from Microsoft AutoUpdate. It should end up somewhere in /Users/<your username>/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems. I think it's called "16807Communicator Installer.mpkg"

Hope this helps.

[#4]

Thanks everyone for information regarding the installer cache location. I've looked everywhere for it!

Regarding using a login policy to install the service pack update I tested that approach with the Office 14.02 patch update. The system locked up at the login screen. The update did successfully update but the system had to be hard rebooted. Does this approach work better with the service pack update?

[#5]

I tested a couple different deploymentinstall methods for Office Service Pack 1 using Casper. All method's included caching the Office 2011 Service 1 MPKG onto the local system. First I tried a policy that installs the service pack at user login and the system completely hung up. The second test was to create a self service package and it worked but almost all apps needed to closed on the local system including Safari and Office reminders. I can image users leaving those items open. Finally, I tried running a install cache package policy at system startup and amazing it worked. It installed quickly and everything seems to be properly updated. Does anyone see any pitfalls to this approach? I didn't notice much if any sort of delay while the system started up.

Thanks,
Matt

Cc: "Casper List (casper at list.jamfsoftware.com<mailto:casper at list.jamfsoftware.com>)" <casper at list.jamfsoftware.com<mailto:casper at list.jamfsoftware.com>>
Subject: Re: [Casper] Looking for Office 2011 SP1 deployment suggestions

[talkingmoose]

IMHO, this is an optimal way to deploy a mass upgrade.
On 6/16/11 9:16 AM, "Roll, Matthew - Beltsville, MD" <Matthew.Roll at wdc.usda.gov> wrote:

The upside is that caching doesn't affect a user while he's logged in and
reduces his time waiting for an update to occur later. The downside is
that you have to plan a two-step deploy: 1) cache to machines while users
are logged in and 2) install cached files at next login.

The times where you saw computers "completely hung up" when installing at
login were probably due to the files copying and installing. I recently
pushed the Office 14.1.0 update to machines and it took about 5-1/2
minutes to copy and install at login from local servers. During that time
users saw nothing but a blue screen. I include a "Before" script with all
deploys that displays a dialog to the user announcing the computer is
updating and the user should be patient.

Also, I use ARD to proactively install software on machines that I see are
sitting at the login window. I'll send them a "jamf policy -trigger login"
command simultaneously.

--

William Smith
Technical Analyst
Merrill Communications LLC
(651) 632-1492

[rmanly]

*Just as an FYI for anyone searching Office update stuff later.*

I have an Office 2011 dmg captured and configured via Composer. When
the update came out I just dragged the 14.1.0 mpkg into Admin, added
it to my Configs and had it run at imaging time. So far this has
worked flawlessly, even with a CS5 AAMEE pkg running as well.

Ryan M. Manly
Glenbrook High Schools

[friedelj]

As another FYI, I was able to download updated media from our Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center this week, so our new installs begin with SP1 already installed.

Joe Friedel, iCIT

University of Wisconsin - Whitewater

Andersen Library, Room 2003F

(262) 472-1658