Custom Installation Wizard

Custom Installation Wizard is the tool you use to customize Office XP. You can use it to configure everything from the Office XP installation folder to the security settings. It's the one tool you'll always use when deploying Office XP. The result of running Custom Installation Wizard is a transform (MST file). You associate this MST file with the Office XP package file using the TRANSFORMS= filename.mst property or a the MST1 setting in the Office XP Setup.ini file.

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Order of Precedence

Most of the Office XP settings are in the registry. If you define conflicting values for the same setting, Office XP has rules that determine which setting it uses. Most often, the later in the process you apply a setting, the more precedence it has. Office XP applies settings in the following order:

  • Settings in an OPS file included in the transform.

  • Settings on the Change Office User Settings, Specify Office Security Settings, and Outlook: Custom Default Settings pages of Custom Installation Wizard.

  • Registry values specified in the transform.

  • Settings applied by running Profile Wizard during installation.

  • Settings that migrate from a previous version of Office XP.

  • Settings applied by using Profile Wizard or Custom Maintenance Wizard after installing Office XP. This precedence assumes that users have already started each Office XP application and any migrated settings have already been applied.

  • Settings managed through policies.

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Four of Custom Installation Wizard's pages enable you to deploy settings with your MST file. You learn more about each page in the following sections "Add/Remove Registry Entries," "Customize Default Application Settings," "Change Office User Settings," and "Add Installations and Run Programs."

Add/Remove Registry Entries

Because most Office XP settings are in the registry, you can customize them by adding and changing registry values within MST files. The setup program applies your settings when users install Office XP. You can apply settings once per user by adding settings to HKCU, or you can apply settings once per computer by adding settings to HKLM. You can also add values to the registry that customize settings that aren't accessible through the Office XP user interface and that Profile Wizard doesn't capture in OPS files. For example, you can include settings for other programs. Here's how to add registry values to a transform:

  1. On the Add Registry Entries page, shown in Figure 14-2, click Add.

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    Figure 14-2: Custom Installation Wizard is the primary tool you use to customize Office XP.

  2. In the Root box, select the portion of the registry you want to modify.

  3. In the Data type box, select a data type for the new entry.

  4. In the remaining boxes, type the full path for the registry value you want to add, enter the value name and data, and click OK.

Typing values on the Add Registry Entries page of Custom Installation Wizard is an error-prone and tedious process. It's better to export the settings to a REG file and then import that REG file into your MST file. For more information about creating REG files, see Chapter 2, "Using the Registry Editor," and Chapter 9, "Scripting Registry Changes." Of course, this assumes that the values you want to add to the transform already exist in your computer's registry. If the values aren't already present, you can add them with the benefit of Registry Editor's user interface, and then export them to a REG file. To import a registry file to a transform:

  1. On Custom Installation Wizard's Add Registry Entries page, click Import.

  2. In the File Name box, type the path and file name of the REG file, and then click Open.

    Custom Installation Wizard adds the values from the REG file to the list on the Add Registry Entries page. If the wizard encounters an entry in the REG file that is a duplicate and each version contains different value data, the wizard prompts you to select the entry you want to keep. To remove any values you don't want to keep, click the value, and then click Remove.

After Windows Installer finishes installing Office XP, it copies the values you added to the Add/Remove Registry Entries screen to users' computers. Options that you set by adding or modifying registry values override duplicate values that you set on other pages of Custom Installation Wizard, including the following:

  • Settings in an OPS file added to a transform

  • Settings on the Change Office User Settings page

  • Options on the Outlook: Customize Default Settings page

  • Settings on the Specify Office Security Settings page

Customize Default Application Settings

Adding an OPS file to an MST file is an easy way to deploy a bunch of settings throughout the organization. You learned how to create an OPS file earlier in this chapter. Now you need to learn how to embed that OPS file in your MST file. The big gotcha here is that any settings in your OPS file have lower precedence than settings you define elsewhere in your MST file. That means settings in the Change Office User Settings page overwrite settings in your OPS file, for example, as do settings defined on the Add Registry Entries page.

You embed OPS file in your MST file on Custom Installation Wizard's Customize Default Application Settings page. Select the Get Values From An Existing Settings Profile check box, and type the file name and path of the OPS file. Custom Installation Wizard creates a transform that contains your OPS file and any other customizations you have made.

Note 

Adding an OPS file to the MST file increases the size of the transform and requires you to re-create the MST file any time you change the OPS file. You can store the OPS file on the network and run Profile Wizard with your OPS file during the Office XP installation, instead. See "Add Installations and Run Programs," later in this chapter, for more information.

If an earlier version of Office is installed on a user's computer, Windows Installer migrates the previous version's settings to Office XP the first time the user starts an Office XP program. Users' migrated settings overwrite duplicate settings in an OPS file or MST file. On the Customize Default Application Settings page of Custom Installation Wizard, shown in Figure 14-3, you can change this behavior. If you are not including an OPS file in the MST file, the wizard selects the Migrate User Settings check box by default. When users install Office XP with your transform, Setup migrates settings from an earlier version of Office. If you add an OPS file to the transform, the wizard clears the Migrate User Settings check box and uses the values in your OPS file instead.

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Figure 14-3: Custom Installation Wizard clears the Migrate User Settings check box if you include an OPS file in your MST file.

If you add an OPS file to an MST file and select the Migrate User Settings check box, the settings from your OPS file are applied during the initial installation. The first time a user runs one of the Office XP programs, Windows Installer migrates settings from an earlier version of Office and overwrites any corresponding settings previously applied.

Change Office User Settings

You can set most of the options you capture with Profile Wizard on Custom Installation Wizard's Change Office User Settings page. That includes any REG_DWORD and REG_SZ value but not REG_BINARY values. This is useful for customizing a small number of settings or changing a default configuration without rebuilding an OPS file that's already in the MST file.

To configure settings on the Change Office User Settings page, shown in Figure 14-4, click a category in the left pane. In the right pane, double-click the settings you want to configure and include in your MST file.

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Figure 14-4: Custom Installation Wizard's Change Office User Settings page is very similar to System Policy Editor with the Office XP policy templates (ADM files) loaded.

When users install Office XP using your transform, the settings you configure on the Change Office User Settings page apply to every user on that computer. However, Windows Installer applies only the settings that differ from existing default settings. Settings you configure on this page of the wizard override the same settings in the OPS file you've included in the transform.

Tip 

The Change Office User Settings page uses templates for the settings it displays, just as Group Policy and system policies use templates. These templates are in C:\Program Files\ORKTools\ORK10\Tools and have the OPA file extension.

Add Installations and Run Programs

Custom Installation Wizard enables you to run programs during the Office XP installation. You can run Profile Wizard (Proflwiz.exe) to distribute custom settings at the end of the Office XP installation, for example. You cannot use Custom Installation Wizard's Add Installations And Run Programs page to install other Windows Installer packages, however. If Windows Installer starts installing a second package before it's finished installing the first, the entire process fails. Here's how to add Profile Wizard to the Add Installations And Run Programs page:

  1. On the Add Installations And Run Programs page, click Add.

  2. In the Target box, type the path and file name of Profile Wizard, typically C:\Program Files\ORKTools\ORK10\Tools\Proflwiz.exe.

  3. In the Arguments box, add command-line options to apply the OPS file to the user's computer, usually /r filename.ops /q.

  4. Do either of the following, as shown in Figure 14-5:

    • Click Run This Program Once Per Machine to apply your settings the first time a user logs on.

    • Click Run This Program Once Per User to apply your default settings to every user on that computer. This option requires an active network connection to the network the first time a user logs on to the computer.

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    Figure 14-5: You can also add programs to your installation by customizing the Office XP Setup.ini file.



Microsoft Windows XP Registry Guide
Microsoft Windows XP Registry Guide (Bpg-Other)
ISBN: 0735617880
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 185

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