Office applications Toolkit

Streamline Outlook 2000 installs

Tags:
Office Resource Kits,
Self Healing Programmes,
Multiple Install,
ORC

Dr. Thomas Shinder MCSE Tech Republic

Published: 10 Apr 2003 12:17 BST

In the left pane below the configuration type are a number of options that allow you to make all the configuration settings you require for Outlook. These include settings such as the name of the Exchange server and the mailbox name on that server. Almost everything you'll need to configure Outlook's basic functionality is located there. Click each of the nodes in the left pane and select the options that fit your requirements. After selecting your options, click Next to continue. Then follow these steps:

The customise IE 5 Installation Options page will appear. Windows 2000 includes Internet Explorer 5. If you're installing Office on down-level Windows clients, you'll need to include IE 5 with the Office installation or have it installed prior to installing Office 2000. In this example, we'll assume the company has upgraded to Windows 2000. Click Next to continue.
On the Modify Setup Properties page, you can change some of the setup properties you've already configured, or add new ones. The LIMITUI property will allow the installation of Outlook to proceed unattended. The OUTLOOKASDEFAULTAPP setting lets you make Outlook the default mail application. For any of these setup properties, you can select the property and then click the Modify button to change its behavior. In this example, the LIMITUI option is set to True, and the OUTLOOKASDEFAULTAPP option is set to All. Click Next to continue.
On the Save Changes page, you'll be informed of the location where the .mst file will be saved. Click Finish to create the .mst file.
The last page of the wizard tells you that the file has been created. In addition, an example command line argument lets you begin the installation of Office using the Transform. The qn+ indicates that the installation will be done in quiet mode. Click Exit to close the wizard.

Performing the installation using the Transform file
After you've created the Transform file, copy it to the administrative share point(s). Put the file in the same folder as the Setup.exe file. When the .mst file is in the same folder as the Setup.exe file, a path to the .mst file doesn't need to be contained in the command line argument. For example, if the installation share point were located at \\constellation\office2k\, then the command you'd use to invoke the installation would be:

\\constellation\office2k\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=CustomOutlook.MST /qn+

If you don't put the .mst file in the same folder as the Setup.exe file, you must include the full path to the .mst.

Distribute with Group Policy
As a final tip, you can also distribute applications via Windows 2000 Group Policy Application Management. When you open the properties sheet of a software package created in Group Policy, click the Modifications tab (Figure D).

Figure D

It will have a list of all .mst files contained in the installation folder. Note that if there are no .mst files contained in the installation folder, the Add button won't be available.

ORKs aplenty
To find out more about the Office Resource Kit and the many tools included in it, check out Microsoft's Web site. There you'll find ORKs for all the versions of Microsoft Office. For a weekly round-up of the enterprise IT news, sign up for the
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