Revert back from MAS Office Suite install to CDN (Issues?)

[jschank]

Does anyone have steps to remove VPP licensed Office Suite on devices to prep Policy to push out the installer? Attempting to get a clean install on devices that already have (MAS) Office suite installed.

We are having issues with updates and users attempting to install via their own Apple account. Also not a good candidate after watching this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyhpUNEAPZE

[talkingmoose]

Test this, but I believe you can simply push the latest CDN installer and let it install over the App Store versions and things will work without having to remove anything.

The bits between the App Store apps and the CDN apps are the same. The only difference will be the App Store receipt in each app bundle. The CDN installer overwrites the apps.

With the App Store versions gone, you'll need to apply either a volume license or let your end users sign in with a Microsoft 365 account.

[jschank]

I have tested that and yes it does work. However I need to start the process of cleaning up prior installs that were using the VPP license of Office Suite being installed by the App Store.

I created ext attributes for Excel,OneNote,Outlook,Powerpoint,Word that provides a (yes) output for the Office App being installed from the App Store. I could then create seperate policies for each app with the ext as a criteria (Smart Group)to show all apps that have the app installed via App Store (Yes) and force the CDN install. Below is an example for Word attribute.

!/bin/sh

MASApps=$( mdfind -onlyin /Applications/ 'kMDItemAppStoreHasReceipt == "1"' )

case "$MASApps" in Word.app) echo "<result>YES</result>" ;; *) echo "<result>NO</result>" ;;

esac

I have had CDN installs over top of MAS installs that still show the atrribute outcome of yes after doing a recon. I also manually removed the _MASReceipt folder with the Word app and did a recon. Still show as a yes. Not sure where the atrribute stands within the app. I need the attrib to change to (no) so it takes the device out of Scope once the device is updated with the CDN install.

[rstasel]

fwiw, here's an example EA we use for Word. It provides MAS but also whether it's VPP or Personal, and if neither, returns CDN. It's worked well for us.

Glad this thread is here. We're looking at migrating back from MAS to CDN since the MAS doesn't reliably update the Office apps (especially if the user(s) never quit them), and MAU has been pretty darn solid for the last year or more, and the config profile allows for robust configuration.

#!/bin/bash

app="/Applications/Microsoft Word.app"

if [ -e "$app/Contents/_MASReceipt" ]; then
    VPPCheck=$(mdls "$app" | awk '/kMDItemAppStoreReceiptIsVPPLicensed/ {print $3}')
    if [ $VPPCheck -eq 1 ]; then
        echo "<result>MAS_VPP</result>"
    else
        echo "<result>MAS_Personal</result>"
    fi
else
    if [ -e "$app" ]; then
        echo "<result>CDN</result>"
    else
        echo "<result>None</result>"
    fi
fi

[jschank]

@rstasel Thanks for this. Did a test and have it working on my end.