Change users' configurations after installing the 2007 Office system
Updated: August 25, 2008
Applies To: Office Resource Kit
This Office product will reach end of support on October 10, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see , Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.
Topic Last Modified: 2017-01-25
After you install 2007 Microsoft Office system on users' computers, you can make changes to the installation with the same tool you used to customize the installation originally. By running the Office Customization Tool (OCT) and creating or modifying a Setup customization file, you can customize the Office installation by, for example, adding or removing features, modifying user settings, or adding or removing files or registry entries.
Customize an existing Office installation
From the root of the network installation point, run the following command line to start the Office Customization Tool: \\server\share\setup.exe /admin.
In the Select Product dialog box, select the product that you want to customize, and click OK. Or, if you want to modify an existing customization file, click Open an existing Setup customization file, click OK, and select and open the customization file you want to modify.
In the left pane, select an area of customization and customize the options available in the right pane. For example, to remove Microsoft Office Access 2007 from the installation, select Set feature installation states in the left pane. In the right pane, expand Microsoft Office and change the installation option for Microsoft Office Access to Not Available.
When you finish making your customizations, select Save As... in the File menu.
Specify a unique name for the file with a .msp file extension, and click Save.
Deploy and apply the Setup customization file (MSP) to users' computers.
Important
If you are also deploying additional languages as part of your customizations, you must first copy all the 2007 Office system Language Packs you want to deploy to the network installation point that contains the Office product files; for example, \server<EM>share\Office12. A static list of the products contained in the installation source is built only during the initial creation of a customization patch. If you add additional languages to the installation source later, the existing patch is not updated to reflect this change. Therefore, you must also re-create the customization MSP file that you want to deploy to users after you update the installation source with additional languages. Failure to do this may result in unexpected behavior as the changes to the customization MSP file will not apply to the added languages.
For information about customizations for multiple languages, see Customize and deploy multiple language versions of the 2007 Office system.
If you decide later that you want to make additional changes to your existing installation, you can use the OCT to create a new maintenance customization patch. For example, you may want to modify existing feature installation states.
As a best practice for modifying existing feature installation states on an existing installation of the 2007 Office system, it is recommended that you create a new maintenance customization patch to make only the changes that you want to implement. You must specify only the changes that you want to make to avoid unexpected results. For example, to create a maintenance customization patch to add the Access feature post-installation, start the OCT and create a new patch for your product. In the left pane of the OCT, select Set feature installation states, expand the tree and select Microsoft Office Access in the right pane, select Run from My Computer, and then click Save as to specify a path and file name for the MSP customization maintenance file.
How it works
Because the Setup customization file created by the OCT is a Windows Installer package (MSP), you can apply the file to users' computers just as you would a software update. The Office installation is modified using the customizations defined in the MSP file.
Note
Although you can use Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) to deploy software updates, you cannot use WSUS to deploy Setup customization files.
You cannot apply the Setup customization file to existing installations by putting the MSP file in the Updates folder and running Setup again on the user's computer, or by running Setup with the customization file specified in the command line. You must apply the MSP file directly to the user's computer.
For example, the user can apply the Setup customization file by double-clicking the MSP file or running MSIEXEC with the /p command-line option, like this: msiexec.exe /p \\server\share\custom.msp.
You can also use a deployment management program such as Microsoft Systems Management Server to deploy Setup customization files. For more information, see Systems Management Server.
Important
Every time you save a customization MSP file in the OCT, the tool updates the customization file’s patch sequencing number with the current computer date and time stamp and generates a new patch globally unique identifier (GUID). The OCT MSP files are applied chronologically according to their time stamp.
To illustrate the sequencing behavior, let us assume that you have created the following OCT MSP maintenance patches:
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An OCT MSP named "uninstall-access.msp" in which you set Microsoft Office Access 2007 to Not Available. This file is saved first so it has a lower patch sequence number and an older date and time stamp. This MSP file gets sequenced first and the Access feature is set to Not Available on users' computers.
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An OCT MSP named "install-access.msp" in which you set Access to Run All from My Computer. This file is saved last so it has a higher patch sequence number and a newer date and time stamp. This MSP file gets sequenced later than the first OCT MSP, "uninstall-access.msp"; therefore, the Access feature is set to Run All from My Computer on users' computers.
For more information about the OCT, see Office Customization Tool in the 2007 Office system.