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How to deploy Office 365 ProPlus from an on-premises web portal

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Learn how to use the Office Deployment Tool and a self-extracting .exe file to enable users to install Office 365 ProPlus from an internal company portal.

 (Today's post is courtesy of Curtis Sawin, Microsoft consultant focused on Office client deployments.)

One of the ways to deploy Office 365 ProPlus is to have your users sign in to the Office 365 portal, go to the software page, and then select Install.  This self-service method is designed to provide flexibility, unlock consumerization of IT scenarios (such as installing Office 365 ProPlus at home), and is a key enabler of the ability to install Office 365 ProPlus on up to 5 devices. However, keep in mind that users must be local admins on their computers to install Office.

Some organizations have technical or business constraints that prohibit their users from signing in to the Office 365 portal from outside of their corporate network.  A question we often receive is “Can I have users install Office 365 ProPlus from my own portal, rather than from the Office 365 portal?”

This scenario is certainly possible using the Office Deployment Tool.  There are just a few easy steps you’ll need to take to reproduce the experience of installing Office 365 ProPlus from the Office 365 portal:

  1. Download the Office Deployment Tool
  2. Create an XML file with instructions on how to install Office 365 ProPlus
  3. Create a self-extracting executable (.exe) file that runs the Office Deployment Tool along with the xml file

After you create and test your self-extracting .exe file, publish it to your company portal.

Here are some more details for those steps.

Step 1: Download the Office Deployment Tool

Download the Office Deployment Tool from the Microsoft Download Center. Then, double-click officedeployment.exe to get the two files you need -- setup.exe (this is the Office Deployment Tool) and configuration.xml .

Step 2: Create an XML file with the instructions to install Office 365 ProPlus.  

The Office Deployment Tool comes with a sample configuration.xml fie. You use the xml file to tell the Office Deployment Tool how to install Office 365 ProPlus. 

The below XML file will perform the following:

  • Install the 32-bit, English version of Office 365 ProPlus
  • Enable automatic updates directly from Office 365
  • Show all user interface screens during the installation (for example, progress screens and error messages)
  • Creates a log file in the %temp% folder

<Configuration>
   <Add OfficeClientEdition="32">  
        <Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">    
            <Language ID="en-us" />  
        </Product>
   </Add>
   <Updates Enabled="TRUE" />
   <Display Level="Full" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />
   <Logging Name="OfficeSetup.txt" Path="%temp%" />
</Configuration>

 

Check out Reference for Click-to-Run configuration.xml file for all the options you can configure in the xml file.

Note that there is no SourcePath attribute in the xml file.  This means that the Office Deployment Tool will first look in the current folder to find the Office 365 ProPlus source files.  Since the source files aren't there, then the Office Deployment Tool will get the files directly from Office 365 across the Internet. The advantage of that is users don't have to be on the local network to get to the source files.  They just need to be connected to the Internet.

You can name the xml file anything you want. For example, InstallFromCloud.xml.

Step 3: Create a self-extracting executable (.exe) file

There are several tools and methods that can be used to do this.  For instance, iexpress.exe is included with Windows operating systems and can build self-extracting .exe files.  Attached at the bottom of this blog post is a 2 minute video that demonstrates how to do this using WinRAR.

Include the following files in your self-extracting .exe file:

  • Setup.exe
  • Your xml file (for example, InstallFromCloud.xml)

The command to run when the files are done extracting is setup.exe /configure InstallFromCloud.xml

When completed, you have a very small file (about 500kb) that will start an installation of Office 365 ProPlus.  With the small file size, this provides a very portable means to start a cloud-based install of Office 365 ProPlus from anywhere.

Lastly, note that if you have implemented any client access policies to limit access to Office 365 services outside of the corporate network, access to use Office 365 ProPlus will be blocked as well.

Create a Self Extracting EXE for Office 365 ProPlus.wmv

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Thanks for the feedback!  The SourcePath attribute is optional, and this is documented attechnet.microsoft.com/.../jj219426(v=office.15).  However, I do see that the article does not mention that if you omit the SourcePath element when executing "setup.exe /configure" that setup.exe will look in the current directory first, and if the source files are not found locally, the cloud is used as the source.  This was demonstrated in the video above. I'm not sure I understand the comments about a 32-bit installer and a 64-bit installer.  Can you elaborate?  The Office deployment Tool (setup.exe) runs as a 32-bit process and can install either 32-bit Office 365 ProPlus or 64-bit Office 365 ProPlus. Curtis Sawin (MSFT)

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    thank you very much

  • Anonymous
    August 08, 2013
    Using Win 7 Enterprise. No iepress.exe in the path.

  • Anonymous
    August 27, 2013
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 18, 2014
    Hi, I'd like to say thank you for your help with this. If only I'd found your post 3 weeks earlier, I would have wasted less time. I've attached the Archive to MDT Applications and its deploying no problem now. All the best David

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2014
    (この記事は 2013 年 8 月 8 日に Office IT Pro Blog に投稿された記事 How to deploy Office 365 ProPlus from an on-premises

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2014
    Hi, My deployment no longer works with error: Couldn't stream office
    Sorry, We can't find a required file. Please check that the installation source is reachable, then try again. Error code:404-4. Nothing has changed from my perspective the machine has internet access. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2014
    I am not a techhead at all and am having trouble following this... But I feel that this may be what is going to fix my problems.. any help?

  • Anonymous
    September 08, 2015
    Best solution you could have given us was the ability to install Office and then just have a login come up for the end user so that it can be registered to their account. So much easier. Love to hate Office 365!

  • Anonymous
    September 08, 2015
    Do you have instructions to publish Office 365 ProPlus and use SourcePath with http://internalApps/Office/ ?