Office 2016 and AutoDMG

[Chuey]

We use AutoDMG to quickly build images for machines. We include Office 2016 in the image so we don't have to push through casper.

After imaging Office won't open. Been having no success getting it to properly work.

Is anyone else doing it this way and maybe I'm missing something or Office doesn't like how AutoDMG builds? I'm not sure. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[bentoms]

@Chuey A couple of things.

1. Don't repackage something that comes as a PKG, try adding the office 2016 pkg to AutoDMG. Or better install later.
2. If you have a volume license, be mindful of the serialiser.

[Chuey]

@bentoms Sorry, we were using the PKG it comes with. I will look at the serialiser post shortly and report back.

[mpermann]

@Chuey not all installers will run correctly when used with AutoDMG. Some installers require they are being installed on a booted computer. I am not sure about Office 2016 as we are not currently using it. You might head over to the microsoft-office channel at the MacAdmins.org slack page and ask in there if you can install Office 2016 into your AutoDMG image.

[donmontalvo]

@bentoms wrote:

Don't repackage something that comes as a PKG

Unless the PKG is wonky enough to warrant doing so. :)

Example 1
Example 2

[jkuo]

We do Office installs after the fact using a Casper Imaging configuration. If you're trying to do a straight dmg deployment, then one way I've done it before is at the very least create a package that would put the zipped installer to a known location like /Users/Shared, and then the last step I would do is double-click it after imaging. Saves you maybe a few minutes.

There used to be a way with Office 2011 to clean up the installer so that it can be put into an AutoDMG workflow (this example uses the predecessor, InstaDMG). That's worked for me in past builds as well, but I haven't done that in a while:

https://www.nbalonso.com/prepare-office-sp3-for-instadmg/

Hope that helps!

[Leal]

@Chuey

I got it working by having the Office 2016 installer run right after installing the image then running the Serializer post image. It took me a while to get this working but this sequence works.