Customizing Office Features and Shortcuts | Microsoft Office 2003 Editions Resource Kit (Pro-Resource Kit)

When you install Microsoft Office 2003 from an administrative installation point or compressed CD image, you can determine which applications and features are installed on users’ computers, including how and when features are installed. You can also customize the way that Setup creates shortcuts for Office 2003 applications and even add your own custom files to the Office installation.

Selecting Office features

When running Office Setup interactively, users can choose which Office applications and features are installed by selecting options from the feature tree that Setup displays. Office features can be installed in any of the following states:

Copied to the local hard disk.
Run from the network server (administrative installation point only).
Installed on first use, which means that Setup does not install the feature until the first time it is used.
Not installed, but accessible to users through Add/Remove Programs or the command line.
Not installed, not displayed during Setup, and not accessible to users after Office is installed.

By using the Office Custom Installation Wizard, you can make these choices for users ahead of time. When users run Setup interactively, the installation states that you specify in the transform (MST file) appear as the default selections. When you run Setup quietly, your choices determine how the features are installed.

On the Resource Kit CD

The Office 2003 Resource Kit includes the Custom Installation Wizard, which is installed by default when you run the Office Resource Kit Setup program. For more information, see “Custom Installation Wizard” in Appendix A, “Toolbox.”

Set the installation state for features

The Set Feature Installation States page of the Custom Installation Wizard displays the same feature tree that users see when they select the Customize option during Setup. The feature tree is a hierarchy. Parent features contain child features, and child features can contain subordinate child features. For example, the Microsoft Word for Windows feature includes the child feature Help. The Help feature includes the child feature Help for WordPerfect Users.

When you click a feature in the feature tree, you can select one of the following installation states:

Run from My Computer Setup copies files and writes registry entries and shortcuts associated with the feature to the user’s hard disk, and the application or feature runs locally.
Run all from My Computer Same as Run from My Computer, except that all child features belonging to the feature are also set to this state.
Run from Network Setup leaves components for the feature on the administrative installation point, and the feature is run from there. The Run from Network option is available only when users install from an uncompressed administrative image.
Run all from Network Same as Run from Network, except that all child features belonging to the feature are also set to this state.

Note that some child features do not support Run from Network; these child features are installed on the local computer.
Installed on First Use Setup leaves components for the feature and all its child features on the administrative installation point until the user first attempts to use the feature, at which time the components are automatically copied to the local hard disk.

If the user installed from a compressed CD image with the local installation source enabled, then the components are installed from the local source.

Note that some child features do not support Installed on First Use; these features are set to Not Available.
Not Available The components for the feature, and all of the child features belonging to the feature, are not installed on the computer. Users can change this installation state during Setup or later in maintenance mode.
Not Available, Hidden, Locked The components for the feature are not installed and the feature does not appear in the feature tree during Setup—nor can users install it by changing the state of the parent feature or by calling Windows Installer directly from the command line.

Not all installation states are available for every feature. For example, if a feature contains a component that cannot be run over the network, then Run from Network is not included in the list of available installation states.

When you change the installation state of a feature, Windows Installer may automatically change the installation state of a parent or child feature to match. If you set the Help feature to Installed on First Use, for example, but set the child feature Help for WordPerfect Users to Run from My Computer, then Setup installs the entire Help feature on the local hard disk.

Tip

If you run the Custom Installation Wizard (Custwiz.exe) with the /x command-line option, the wizard displays the feature tree fully expanded on the Set Feature Installation States page.

Hide or lock features during Setup

In addition to setting the installation state, you can right-click any feature on the Set Feature Installation States page and click Hide to hide the feature from the user. Setup does not display hidden features in the feature tree when users run Setup interactively; instead, the feature is installed behind the scenes according to the installation state that you have specified. When you hide a feature, all of the child features belonging to the feature are also hidden.

The best use of the Hide setting is to simplify the feature tree for users. For example, you might hide the Office Tools branch of the feature tree so that users do not have to decide which tools they need. Only the tools that you select are installed.

Note

When you edit the transform in the Custom Installation Wizard, you can reverse the Hide setting by right-clicking the feature and clicking Unhide. However, you cannot use the Custom Maintenance Wizard to expose a hidden feature after Office is installed.

Even if you set a feature to Not Available and hide it in the feature tree, users can still change the setting and install the feature by installing the parent feature or by running Office 2003 Setup in maintenance mode. For example, if you set the Help for WordPerfect Users feature to Not Available and hide it, users can still install it by setting the parent Help feature to Run All from My Computer.

If you want to help prevent users from installing hidden features, choose the Not Available, Hidden, Locked installation state. In this case, the feature or application is not installed and is not available in maintenance mode. Users cannot install it by changing the state of the parent feature or by calling Windows Installer directly from the command line. The only way to reverse the Not Available, Hidden, Locked installation state after Office 2003 is installed is to use the Custom Maintenance Wizard.

On the Resource Kit CD

The Office 2003 Resource Kit includes the Custom Maintenance Wizard, which is installed by default when you run the Office Resource Kit Setup program. For more information, see “Custom Maintenance Wizard” in Appendix A, “Toolbox.”

When users install Office, Setup does not display the feature tree by default. Clicking the Custom Install option displays a top-level list of Office applications. Users can select the check box next to an application to install a typical set of features. When you set an Office application to Not Available, Hidden, Locked, the check box on this page remains visible but appears grayed out—users cannot select the application. To hide this page during Setup altogether, set the SKIPCHECKBOXDIALOG property to 1.

For more information about changing feature installation states after Office 2003 is installed, see “Updating Feature Installation States and Application Settings” in Chapter 18, “Updating Users’ Office 2003 Configurations.”

Disable installation states that rely on a network connection

Installing features on demand or running features over the network is not always efficient. Both of these installation states require a fast connection and reliable access to the administrative installation point on the network—which laptop users in the field might not always have.

The Custom Installation Wizard for Office 2003 includes two options on the Set Feature Installation States page that disable these installation states and help ensure that users do not reset features to these states during Setup or in maintenance mode:

Disable Run from Network When you select a feature in the feature tree and then select this check box, users are prevented from setting the feature to run from the network. The installation state does not appear in the list of options during initial Setup or in maintenance mode.
Disable Installed on First Use When you select a feature in the feature tree and then select this check box, users are prevented from setting the feature to be installed on first use. The installation state does not appear in the list of options during initial Setup or in maintenance mode.

Child features do not inherit these settings from parent features automatically. You must select each feature in the tree and set Disable Run from Network or Disable Installed on First Use for only that feature. You can also select a feature and click Apply to Branch to apply either of these settings to a feature and all of its subordinate features.

Note

The Disable Run from Network and Disable Installed on First Use settings remain in effect for as long as Office is installed on the user’s computer. You cannot reverse these settings by using the Custom Maintenance Wizard.

Modify intelligent Setup behavior

To make an Office 2003 installation more efficient, Setup automatically sets default feature installation states in the following circumstances:

When you upgrade to Office 2003, Setup detects and matches feature installation states from the previous version.

For example, if Microsoft Word 2002 is installed to run from the network, Setup installs Microsoft Office Word 2003 to run from the network. If Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 is set to Not Available, Setup does not install Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003.
When you install MUI Packs from the Microsoft Office 2003 Multilingual User Interface Pack, Setup matches the feature installation states specified for the core version of Office.

For example, if the core English version of Microsoft Office Access 2003 is set to be installed on demand, then Setup automatically sets international versions of Access 2003 features to Installed on First Use.
When you install Office under Microsoft Windows Terminal Services, Setup applies the most efficient installation state for each feature.

For example, because the speech recognition feature does not run efficiently over most networks and might not be supported by all clients, Windows Terminal Services automatically changes the feature installation state from Installed on First Use to Not Available.

This intelligent Setup behavior works to your advantage in most situations. However, you can override Setup and specify your own default feature installation states in a transform by using one of the following two settings:

NOFEATURESTATEMIGRATION property

Setting this property to 1 for the Office 2003 package overrides intelligent Setup behavior for the entire package. Note that this property has no effect on Windows Terminal Services logic; you must override optional Windows Terminal Services installation states on a per-feature basis.
Do Not Migrate Previous Installation State check box on the Set Feature Installation States page of the Custom Installation Wizard

Selecting an Office 2003 feature in the feature tree and then selecting this check box overrides intelligent Setup behavior and enforces the installation state you set in the transform. (If you have already set the property NOFEATURESTATEMIGRATION for the entire package, then selecting this check box for a given feature has no effect.) Note that this check box has no effect on default feature installation state matching for MUI Pack features.

The following table summarizes the results of setting the property NOFEATURESTATEMIGRATION for an Office 2003 package or selecting the Do Not Migrate Previous Installation State check box for a feature.

Package	Property set to True	Check box selected
Office	Default feature installation state migration is disabled for all of Office.	Does not apply the installation state from a previous version to the selected feature.
MUI Pack	Default feature installation state matching is disabled for the entire package.	Has no effect on default feature installation state matching.
Proofing Tools	Default feature installation state matching is disabled for the entire package.	Has no effect on default feature installation state matching.

Although the NOFEATURESTATEMIGRATION property has no effect on Windows Terminal Services logic, you can override default Windows Terminal Services settings for some features by selecting the Do Not Migrate Previous Installation State check box. For example, if your network and clients support the speech recognition feature, you can set that feature to Run from My Computer and select the Do Not Migrate Previous Installation State check box to enforce your setting. However, you cannot override all of the installation states set by default under Windows Terminal Services. For example, Windows Terminal Services does not allow any feature to be set to Installed on First Use.

Microsoft Access 2000 and Office 2003

When you upgrade from Microsoft Office 2000 to Office 2003, you might choose to keep Access 2000 installed on users’ computers. In this scenario, if you set Access 2003 to Not Available and install Office quietly, then Windows Installer removes the MDB file extension registration, and Access 2000 no longer recognizes the databases. Selecting the Do Not Migrate Previous Installation State check box for Microsoft Access does not prevent this problem.

To help ensure that Access 2000 users can continue to use their MDB files after the upgrade, you can take one of two steps:

Set Microsoft Office Access 2003 to Not Available, Hidden, and Locked in the transform.

or
Set the NOFEATURESTATEMIGRATION property to True for the entire Office package.

Adding files to the installation

In addition to selecting which Office files are installed, Setup allows you to add your own files to the Office installation. You can deploy corporate templates, images, custom applications, or other files along with Office. On the Add/Remove Files page of the Office Custom Installation Wizard, click Add to add a new file to the installation.

After you select one or more files to add, enter the destination path for the file or files in the File Destination Path dialog box. You can enter an absolute path on the user’s computer, or you can select a path from the list. If you select a path, you can add a subfolder to it by appending a backslash (\) followed by the subfolder name. When you click OK, the wizard adds the file to the transform. Setup installs the file on the user’s computer, in the folder you specified, when the user installs Office.

Note

Files that you add to the installation on this page are not removed if the user subsequently modifies the file or removes, repairs, or reinstalls Office.

After you add the file, you can add a shortcut for the file on the Add, Modify, or Remove Shortcuts page of the wizard. On that page, click Add; the file you added appears in the Target box. Because the file is copied into the transform, you must update the transform if the file changes later on.

To update the installation with modified files

On the Open the MST File page, enter the name of the Windows Installer transform (MST file).
On the Select the MST File to Save page, enter the name of the MST file again.
On the Add/Remove Files page, select the file that has changed, and then click Remove.
Click Add, and then enter the information for your modified file.

The Custom Installation Wizard also allows you to specify files to remove from users’ computers when Office is installed. For example, you can have Setup delete custom templates designed for Word 2002 or Word 2000 when you upgrade to Word 2003. Click the Remove Files tab to list files to remove.

For more information about adding or removing files by using a transform, see the Help for the Add/Remove Files page in the Custom Installation Wizard.

Customizing Office shortcuts

By using the Custom Installation Wizard, you can customize the shortcuts that Setup creates for Microsoft Office applications and files. You can control what shortcuts are installed, and you can also specify which folder a shortcut is stored in and what command-line options to use with a shortcut.

On the Add, Modify, or Remove Shortcuts page, the Custom Installation Wizard displays shortcuts for all the features that you selected on the Set Feature Installation States page.

An additional tab displays shortcuts for Office 2003 features that you did not set to be installed. Use the Not Installed tab to customize shortcuts for applications that you plan to install later.

For example, if you omitted Access 2003 from your initial installation, you can use the Custom Maintenance Wizard to install Access later. However, because the Custom Maintenance Wizard does not allow you to customize the way shortcuts are installed, you must customize Access shortcuts ahead of time in the transform.

Note

Shortcuts for Office 2003 applications are stored in a new subfolder: Start\Programs\Microsoft Office. Shortcuts to Office tools are stored in a subfolder in the same location: Start\Programs\Microsoft Office\Microsoft Office Tools. If you upgrade to Office 2003 but retain some applications from a previous version, the shortcuts for the applications you have chosen to keep, and those for any shared components, remain in their original location: Start\Programs and Start\Programs\Microsoft Office Tools. Shortcuts to the new versions of the applications and tools appear in the new location.

Modify an existing shortcut

On the Add, Modify, or Remove Shortcuts page, you modify any existing shortcut by selecting the shortcut and clicking Modify. In the Add/Modify Shortcut Entry dialog box, you can make the following changes:

Change the target application associated with a shortcut.
Change the location in which the shortcut (LNK file) is created.
Rename a shortcut.
Change the starting folder for the application—that is, the folder in which the application starts when the user clicks the shortcut.
Specify a keyboard shortcut for a shortcut.
Change the icon associated with a shortcut.

For more information about modifying shortcuts by using a transform, see the Help for the Add, Modify, or Remove Shortcuts page in the Custom Installation Wizard.

Add or remove shortcuts

You can click Add to add a new shortcut for any file being installed by Setup. This step allows you to create duplicate shortcuts for the most frequently used Office applications on the user’s computer. It also allows you to create shortcuts for custom files or applications that you add to the installation.

To remove a shortcut from the list, select the shortcut and click Remove.

Create Windows Installer shortcuts

Windows Installer shortcuts support automatic repair of Office features and allow you to advertise Office applications. Advertised applications are installed the first time a user clicks the shortcut or opens a file associated with the application.

In some circumstances, you might not want Setup to create Windows Installer shortcuts. For example, if you are deploying to roaming users who sometimes log on to computers that do not support Windows Installer shortcuts, you can circumvent the default behavior by clearing the Create Windows Installer shortcuts if supported check box on the Add, Modify, or Remove Shortcuts page.

Migrate or clean up custom shortcuts from previous versions

Office users can create shortcuts with custom names or command-line options. For example, a custom shortcut might open a particular document whenever Word is started. In versions of Office prior to Office XP, these shortcuts were left behind and broken when users upgraded to a new version of Office. When you upgrade to Office 2003, however, Setup automatically migrates custom shortcuts to point to the corresponding Office 2003 application.

For example, if a user has created a shortcut to Word 2002 on the desktop, Setup replaces it with a shortcut to Word 2003. If you associated a custom command line with the shortcut, Setup preserves that, as well.

Note

Custom shortcuts for previous versions of Access are not updated to point to Access 2003 when you upgrade.

How Setup handles custom shortcut migration

Setup handles shortcut migration for each application separately. If you upgrade most of your applications to Office 2003 but retain Microsoft Excel 2002, for example, then all your shortcuts point to the correct versions—Office 2003 applications and Excel 2002.

If you install more than one version of the same application on your computer—for example, both Excel 2002 and Microsoft Office Excel 2003—then Setup updates all custom shortcuts to point to the Office 2003 application. In this multiple-version scenario, you might later uninstall Office 2003; however, your custom shortcuts are not migrated back to the previous version.

If you are installing Office 2003 in a multiple-version environment, and you do not want to update custom shortcuts to point to the new version, you can prevent Setup from upgrading existing custom shortcuts. Set the DISABLESCMIGRATION property to True in a transform or on the command line.

Setup handles migration of custom shortcuts in the following circumstances:

When Office 2003 is first installed.
When an advertised Office 2003 application is installed.
When the installation state of an installed application is changed to Not Available.

Setup searches the following locations for custom shortcuts:

Desktop
Start menu, including the Programs and Microsoft Office Tools submenus
Quick Launch toolbar

Note

The Office Shortcut Bar has been removed from Office 2003 and none of the Office Shortcut Bar shortcuts from previous versions migrate to Office 2003.

You can specify additional custom shortcuts in other locations by editing the Oclncust.opc file in the Office folder. These shortcuts are migrated when Office is installed. In the OPC file, custom shortcuts are specified by using the following syntax:

SHORTCUT=OPC directory token or drive letter and colon\subdirectory \target file name | feature | version | component | command line

To remove a custom shortcut during the installation, you must specify only the target file name. Setup matches the target file name with any shortcut, regardless of the actual shortcut name (LNK file). For example, to remove any custom shortcut to Word in the Office subfolder of the StartMenu\Programs folder, add the following line to the Oclncust.opc file:

SHORTCUT=SYSMENUPROGRAMSDIR\Office\winword.exe

However, if you want Setup to automatically migrate this custom shortcut to point to Word 2003, add the following line instead:

SHORTCUT=SYSMENUPROGRAMSDIR\Office\winword.exe|WORDFiles||Global_Word_Core

Note

When a custom Windows Installer shortcut that includes command-line options migrates to Office 2003, the new shortcut becomes a normal Windows shortcut. The new shortcut no longer supports install-on-demand functionality, but users can modify the command line after the upgrade.

For more information about editing the OPC files used by Setup and the Removal Wizard to clean up previous versions, see “OPC File Syntax” in Appendix B, “Office 2003 Resource Kit Reference.”

How Setup cleans up custom shortcuts

Office 2003 removes custom shortcuts to Office 2003 applications more efficiently than versions prior to Office XP. For example, if a user copies a shortcut to Excel 2003 onto the desktop and then removes Excel 2003 from the computer, Setup automatically removes that shortcut.

In addition to the default locations that Setup checks for custom shortcuts to remove, you can direct Setup to search additional folders for outdated custom shortcuts by setting the CIWEXTRASHORTCUTDIRS property in a transform or on the command line. You specify additional locations by using a list delimited by semicolons.

For example, to direct Setup to clean up custom shortcuts in the Startup and Favorites\My Office folders, specify the following:

CIWEXTRASHORTCUTDIRS=<StartMenu\Programs\Startup>; <Favorites>\My Office

When you specify additional folders, you can use any of the following folder keywords, appending other path information to them:

<Desktop>
<StartMenu>
<StartMenu\Programs>
<StartMenu\Programs\Startup>
<ProgramFiles\Microsoft Office>
<ApplicationData>
<Favorites>
<NetHood>

You can also specify additional locations by using a full path, such as C:\Office\My Office. Wildcards—both asterisks (*) and question marks (?)—are supported. For example, the following setting causes Setup to search the Start Menu\Programs folder for all folders that include Office in the name:

CIWEXTRASHORTCUTDIRS=<StartMenu\Programs\*Office*>