Deploy Different Language Configurations to Different Groups of Office Users

In many organizations, you must install different language resources for different groups of users. In this case, you create separate Microsoft Office transforms, separate Microsoft Office 2003 Multilingual User Interface Pack transforms, and a customized Setup.ini for each group. First, you decide whether to use one or separate administrative installation points for your deployment. Then, typically, you follow these steps:

• In each Office transform, specify the customized language settings for a group of users.

• In each MUI Pack transform, define customizations, such as setting Setup properties.

• In the Setup.ini file, chain the languages to the Office installation.

For example, you might have one group of users that speaks French but needs to edit documents in German. You might have a second group of users that speaks Russian but needs to edit in Hungarian. In this scenario, you customize two sets of Office and MUI Pack transforms, along with the corresponding Setup.ini files, one set for each group of users.

First, you create one or more administrative installation points on the server to deploy the following Office configurations:

• Core Office (English) plus the French MUI Pack and German proofing tools from the German MUI Pack

• Core Office (English) plus the Russian MUI Pack and Hungarian proofing tools from the Hungarian MUI Pack

Choose the number of installation points to use

You can use the same administrative installation point, or two separate installation points, to deploy Office with multiple multilingual configurations.

If you choose to use the same administrative installation point for two Office installations, you must take steps to ensure that the correct Setup.ini file is used for each installation. (This is not a problem if you use different administrative installation points because the file names will not need to be different.) First, you specify two different Setup.ini files to use, one for each deployment. Then you have two options for using the appropriate Setup.ini file for an installation: the /settings option for Setup.exe, or two copies of Setup.exe with names that correspond to the correct Setup.ini file.

For example, suppose you have two Setup.ini files, SetupFra.ini, and SetupRus.ini. In this situation, choose one of these two methods for installation:

• Use /settings to specify which Setup.ini file to use on the Setup.exe command line you provide to your users. For example:

  Setup.exe /settings \\server\share\Office\SetupFra.ini

  and

  Setup.exe /settings \\server\share\Office\SetupRus.ini

• Copy Setup.exe for each language, and rename the Setup.exe files to match corresponding Setup.ini file names. Then direct users to run the appropriate Setup program file. For example:

  SetupFra.exe will by default use SetupFra.ini.

  SetupRus.exe will by default use SetupRus.ini.

Create a transform for different groups of users

Once you have decided whether to use one or more administrative installation points, you customize Office for each group by using separate transforms. You also create separate MUI Pack transforms to include proofing tools that provide additional language-editing capabilities.

Choices for installing proofing tools

You can install proofing tools from Microsoft Office 2003 Proofing Tools instead of using the proofing tools included in the Multilingual User Interface Pack. To do this, you chain Office 2003 Proofing Tools to your Office installation as you would a MUI Pack. However, your installation is not as scalable if you choose to use Office 2003 Proofing Tools instead of installing the proofing tools included in the Multilingual User Interface Pack.

For example, suppose you install proofing tools for a language from Office 2003 Proofing Tools and then decide to include proofing tools for another language later. Proofing Tools includes all languages in a single MSI file. When you install the proofing tools for the first language, you might have disabled installation for all the other proofing tools in the MSI file. In this case, if you want to later deploy proofing tools for another language, you must use the Custom Maintenance Wizard to change the feature state for the additional proofing tools.

For example, you create the Office transform for the French-speaking group as described in this procedure.

To create an Office transform with language settings for French and German

1. Start the Custom Installation Wizard.

2. On the Open MSI File page, enter (or browse to) the MSI file name for your Office installation (for example, Pro11.msi) from the administrative installation point for Office:

   \\server1\share\office\Pro11.msi

3. On the Select the MST File to Save page, enter the name of the MST file you are creating; for example:

   \\server1\share\office\OfficeWithFrGr.mst

4. On the Change Office User Settings page, click Microsoft Office 2003 (User).

5. Navigate the tree under Language Settings to Enabled Languages.

6. Double-click Installed version of Microsoft Office to open the Properties page for this setting.

7. Click Apply changes, then select French from the Installed version of Microsoft Office drop-down menu.

8. Click OK.

9. Click Show controls and enable editing for.

10. In the languages shown in the right-hand pane, open French, click Apply changes, then click Check to turn setting on.

11. Click OK.

12. Follow steps 9 through 11 again with German.

13. Make any other customizations to Office settings, then click Finish.

Next, you customize a transform to select the proofing tools from the German MUI Pack.

To create a transform for German proofing tools from the German MUI Pack

1. Start the Custom Installation Wizard.

2. On the Open MSI File page, enter (or browse to) the German MUI Pack MSI file:

   \\server1\share\office\1031\Mui.msi

3. On the Select the MST File to Save page, enter the name of the MST file you are creating; for example:

   \\server1\share\office\1031\MUIGermanPT.mst

4. On the Select Feature Installation States page, click on the Microsoft Office drop-down arrow and select Not Available for all features.

   (You can alternately specify Not Available, Hidden, Locked.)

5. Click on the Office Shared Features node (plus (+) sign), click on the Proofing Tools node, then choose an installation state (for example, Run from My Computer).

6. Click Finish.

Modify Setup.ini to chain the MUI Packs

After you create the custom transforms, you modify Setup.ini to chain the French MUI Pack with the Office installation and apply the transform to install the German proofing tools. To chain packages, you customize the Office Setup.ini file by using a text editor, such as Notepad, to include the MSI packages you want to install.

The following procedures describes how to chain the French and German MUI Packs to an Office deployment, including the transform created earlier to install the German proofing tools from the German MUI Pack. You would follow a similar procedure to chain the Russian and Hungarian MUI Packs, creating a Setup file called (for example) SetupRus.ini.

Note

For detailed information about chaining packages with Office, see “Deploying Office and Other Products Together” in Chapter 5, “Installing Office 2003.”

To chain the French MUI Pack with your Office deployment

1. Open the Office Setup settings file for the French and German installation (SetupFra.ini) in a text editor, such as Notepad.

2. Create a section called [ChainedInstall_1], and in this section specify the name and path of the MUI Pack you want to chain.

   1036 is the LCID for French, and 1031 is the LCID for German. To add the French MUI Pack, for this example, you might enter:

   PATH=\\server1\share\office\1036\Mui.msi

3. Create a section called [ChainedInstall_2], and in this section specify the name and path of the second MUI Pack you want to chain. To add the German MUI Pack, you might enter:

   PATH=\\server1\share\office\1031\mui.msi

4. Specify the task type for this section:

   TASKTYPE=msi

5. Specify other options for this section, such as IgnoreReturnValue or Reboot.

6. Specify a unique display setting or MUI Pack transform in each section to apply to that MUI Pack installation by setting the Display or MST property. (You can, instead, specify these options on the command line.)

   In this example, specify the MST file for the German MUI Pack:

   MST=\\server1\share\office\1031\MUIGermanPT.mst

7. Specify additional options to each ChainedInstall section by using the Cmdline property. For example, set the NOFEATURESTATEMIGRATION property to True to cancel the custom action that matches installation states for MUI Pack feature states to corresponding Office feature installation states:

   CMDLINE=NOFEATURESTATEMIGRATION=TRUE

The completed sections in the Setup.ini file look like this:

[ChainedInstall_1] PATH=\\server1\share\office\1036\Mui.msi TASKTYPE=msi CMDLINE=NOFEATURESTATEMIGRATION=True [ChainedInstall_2] PATH=\\server1\share\office\1031\Mui.msi TASKTYPE=msi MST=\\server1\share\office\1031\MUIGermanPT.mst CMDLINE=NOFEATURESTATEMIGRATION=True 

Deploying to your users

Now that you have completed the steps to configure Office and to configure and chain the MUI Packs and proofing tools you want, you next provide a command line to users that installs Office with the language features you have chosen.

The French-speaking group installs Office by using the following command line (for example):

\\server1\share\office\SetupFra.exe /qb  TRANSFORMS=\\server1\share\office\OfficeWithFrench.mst

The French-speaking group ends up with a French user interface and Help system with both French and German editing tools enabled.

The basic procedures for deploying to Russian-speaking users are identical, substituting the appropriate languages. Then the Russian-speaking group installs Office by using the following command line (for example):

\\server1\share\office\SetupRus.exe /qb  TRANSFORMS=\\server1\share\office\OfficeWithRussian.mst

This group ends up with a Russian user interface and Help system with both Russian and Hungarian editing tools enabled.