Microsoft Office on gal.vin

Office Update Utility - Update 22.07.30

Sun, 31 Jul 2022 16:06:07 +0100

Version 22.07.30

Changes:

Changed how the removal of old update files is done. Old versions will be removed regardless, -Days option has been removed.

Office Update Utility is available from:

For full change log and more information, visit my site.

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If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.

-Mike

Deploying Microsoft Office with MDT

Fri, 25 Mar 2022 00:53:53 +0000

Before You Start

The modern Microsoft Office suite is now only available as a ‘Click-to-Run’ installation, which changes how the installation package is obtained, configured and deployed.

These are the resources we’ll be using in this guide.

Creating a Config File

Configuration of the Office suite is now done via an XML file. You can generate one by using the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center. Simply go to the site and click on the “Create a new configuration” button.

Under “Products and releases” choose what architecture and Office Suite you require, how often you want Office to update - I recommend the “Monthly Enterprise Channel”, and which apps to include or exclude.
For “Language” either choose specific languages or “Match Operating System”.
Under “Installation options” you should choose “Local source” and enter the “Source path” of: Z:\Applications\[Your-Office-Install] as this will be where the files are stored in MDT. Z:\ is automatically mapped to %deployroot% during an MDT Task Sequence.
For the “Update and upgrade” options this will depend on whether you plan on Office updating from the internet on the systems once it is deployed, or if you want to have a central Office update on the local network (maybe using my Office Update Utility), or if you are using Config Manager.
For the Upgrade options, these can be disabled as we will be installing office as part of a clean build of Windows.
Under “Licensing and activation” you will need to set “Automatically accept the EULA” to enabled, set any product keys if required and choose what type of activation you need.
For “General” provide your Company name and a description for this config file. I tend to use a brief list of the config choices for future reference.
Under “Application preferences” you can set any specific preferences that you require.
When you are happy with your config file, click “Export” and you will be prompted to choose the “Default File Format”. I generally choose the “Office Open XML formats”.
Finally, accept the terms in the license agreement, enter a file name and download the file.

Downloading the Office installation files

First download and extract the Office Deploy Tool (ODT) from Microsoft to a new folder. The included example XML files can be deleted.
Put your XML config file in the same folder as the Office Deploy Tool.
Make a copy of your XML config file and edit one of them.
Edit the “SourcePath” near the top of the file to point to a location on your local drive, for example: SourcePath="C:\Users\sysadmin\Downloads\ODT" and then save it.
Open a command prompt and change directory to the folder that contains the Office Deploy Tool and your config XML file.
Run the following command to download the Office files: setup.exe /download [your-edited-config.xml]
A new folder called “Office” will be created and the installation files will be stored there.

Importing the Office installation files into MDT

Copy the entire folder containing the Office Deploy Tool, your config files and the Office folder to your MDT Applications folder.
Rename the folder so it matches what you entered for the Source path when you created the config file on the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center website.
Go to the MDT Deployment Workbench and open “Applications”.
Right-click on “Applications” and click “New Application”.
Choose “Application without source files or elsewhere on the network” and click Next.
Enter an Application name and click Next.
For the “Command line:” enter the following: setup.exe /configure [your-config.xml]
For the “Working directory:” enter the following: .\Applications\[Your-Office-Install] and then click Next.
Finally on the summary screen click Next and then Finish.

After importing the installation files you will now be able to install Office as part of a Windows deployment Task Sequence like any other application.

Group Policy ADMX Files for Office

The ADMX files for Office are backwards compatible with previous versions of Office back to Office 2016 and they can be downloaded here.

Support My Work

If you would like to support me, please check out the link below.

PayPal

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.

-Mike

Office Update Utility - Update 20.03.01

Tue, 03 Mar 2020 15:19:21 +0000

Office Update Manager for 365/2019

I’ve overhauled Office Update Utility and have improved the reporting. It also includes all the same improvements that the other refactored utilities have.

2020-03-03: Version 20.03.01 ‘Crosshair’

New features:

Refactored code.
Fully backwards compatible.
Added ASCII banner art when run in the console.
Added option to disable the ASCII banner art.
Config report matches design of Image Factory Utility.

Office Update Utility can be downloaded from:

See the full documentation available here.

If you would like to support me, please check out the link below.

PayPal

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.

-Mike

Office Update Utility

Sun, 16 Jun 2019 15:00:47 +0000

Microsoft Office Update Manager

Office Update Utility is available from:

Please consider supporting my work:

Support with a one-time donation using PayPal.

Please report any problems via the ‘issues’ tab on GitHub.

Thanks
-Mike

Features and Requirements

This utility will check for and download update files for Microsoft Office.
It can also remove old update files.
This utility requires the Office Deployment Tool a free download available here.
This utility requires at least PowerShell 5.0.
This utility has been tested on Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server 2016.
The update log can be sent via email and/or webhook.

Folder Structure

This utility requires a specific folder structure in order to operate, it expects the Office Deployment Tool and the configuration xml file to be in the same folder. Additionally, the source path of the Office installation files in the configuration xml file should be set to the same location. For example:

Office Deployment Tool location: \\server\share\Office-365-x64\setup.exe
Configuration xml file location: \\server\share\Office-365-x64\config-2019-x64.xml
Source path in the configuration xml file: \\server\share\Office-365-x64

This configuration will result in the Office update files being downloaded and stored in: \\server\share\Office-2019-x64\Office\Data

Generating A Password File For SMTP Authentication

The password used for SMTP server authentication must be in an encrypted text file. To generate the password file, run the following command in PowerShell on the computer and logged in with the user that will be running the utility. When you run the command, you will be prompted for a username and password. Enter the username and password you want to use to authenticate to your SMTP server.

Please note: This is only required if you need to authenticate to the SMTP server when send the log via e-mail.

1
2

$creds = Get-Credential
$creds.Password | ConvertFrom-SecureString | Set-Content c:\scripts\ps-script-pwd.txt

After running the commands, you will have a text file containing the encrypted password. When configuring the -Pwd switch enter the path and file name of this file.

Configuration

Here’s a list of all the command line switches and example configurations.

Command Line Switch	Description	Example
-Office	The folder containing the Office Deployment Tool (ODT).	[path]
-Config	The name of the configuration xml file for the Office ODT. It must be located in the same folder as the ODT.	[file name.xml]
-Days	The number of days that you wish to keep old update files for. If you do not configure this option, no old files will be removed.	[number]
-L	The path to output the log file to.	[path]
-LogRotate	Remove logs produced by the utility older than X days	[number]
-NoBanner	Use this option to hide the ASCII art title in the console.	N/A
-Help	Display usage information. No arguments also displays help.	N/A
-Webhook	The txt file containing the URI for a webhook to send the log file to.	[path]webhook.txt
-Subject	Specify a subject line. If you leave this blank the default subject will be used	“'[Server: Notification]'”
-SendTo	The e-mail address the log should be sent to. For multiple address, separate with a comma.	[example@contoso.com]
-From	The e-mail address the log should be sent from.	[example@contoso.com]
-Smtp	The DNS name or IP address of the SMTP server.	[smtp server address]
-Port	The Port that should be used for the SMTP server. If none is specified then the default of 25 will be used.	[port number]
-User	The user account to authenticate to the SMTP server.	[example@contoso.com]
-Pwd	The txt file containing the encrypted password for SMTP authentication.	[path]ps-script-pwd.txt
-UseSsl	Configures the utility to connect to the SMTP server using SSL.	N/A

Example

`1`	`[path\]Office-Update.ps1 -Office [path\] -Config [file name.xml] -Days [number]`

This will update the office installation files in the specified directory, and delete update files older than X days

Change Log

2023-04-28: Version 23.04.28

Minor improvement to update checker. If the internet is not reachable it silently errors out.

2023-02-07: Version 23.02.07

Added script update checker - shows if an update is available in the log and console.
Added webhook option to send log file to.
Removed SMTP authentication details from the ‘Config’ report. Now it just shows as ‘configured’ if SMTP user is configured. To be clear: no passwords were ever shown or stored in plain text.

2022-07-31: Version 22.07.30

Changed how the removal of old files works. Old versions will be removed regardless, -Days option has been removed.

2022-06-22: Version 22.06.22

Fixed an issue where If -L [path] not configured then a non fatal error would occur as no log path was specified for the log to be output to.

2022-06-14: Version 22.05.25

Added new feature: log can now be emailed to multiple addresses.
Added checks and balances to help with configuration as I’m very aware that the initial configuration can be troublesome. Running the utility manually is a lot more friendly and step-by-step now.
Added -Help to give usage instructions in the terminal. Running the script with no options will also trigger the -help switch.
Cleaned user entered paths so that trailing slashes no longer break things or have otherwise unintended results.
Added -LogRotate [days] to removed old logs created by the utility.
Streamlined config report so non configured options are not shown.
Added donation link to the ASCII banner.
Cleaned up code, removed unneeded log noise.

2022-05-25: Version 22.05.25

Added -Help to give usage instructions in the terminal. Also running the script with no options will also trigger the -help switch.
Streamlined config report so non configured options are not shown.
Added a -LogRotate option to delete logs older than X number of days.

2021-12-06: Version 21.12.06

Fixed problem with Hostname not displaying.

2021-12-04: Version 21.12.04

Configured logs path now is created, if it does not exist.
Added OS version info.
Added an option to specify the Port for SMTP communication.

2020-03-03: Version 2020.03.01 ‘Crosshair’

New features:

Refactored code.
Fully backwards compatible.
Added ASCII banner art when run in the console.
Added option to disable the ASCII banner art.
Config report matches design of Image Factory Utility.

2019-09-04 v1.1

Added custom subject line for e-mail.

2019-06-16 v1.0

Initial release.

Deploying Office 2019 or Office 365

Sun, 26 May 2019 11:08:50 +0000

If you’re familiar with deploying Office 2016 or any previous version, then the first big change when looking into Office 2019 or Office 365 is that there is no longer an MSI installer. Office 2019/Office 365 is now only available as a ‘Click-to-Run’ installation, which means we’ll need to change how we package, deploy and update Office 2019 or Office 365. Links to sites used in this post:

Configuration of the Office 2019/Office 365 install is now done via an XML file. You can generate one on the Office 365 Client Configuration Service, however before you do you’ll need to be aware of some of the changes regarding how updates are handled in Office 2019/Office 365. If you currently use WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) then you’ll see that there’s an entry for Office 2019 and Office 365 in the product list, however in my testing this doesn’t actually do anything. Updates for Office 2019/Office 365 are handled completely differently due to the Click-to-Run installation. To manage updates, you can use SCCM, a local network path, or simply download the updates from the Office CDN (Content Distribution Network). When configuring your Office configuration XML file, you can specify the location that Office should get updates from. I’m going to be using a local network path for this post. Once Office is installed it will periodically check for updates from the location specified. You can keep this location up to date by using the Office Deployment Tool which I cover later in this post. Office 2019/Office 365 updates separately from Windows update, you can see all the Office scheduled tasks in Task Scheduler, under Microsoft/Office.

Preparation for Deployment of Office 2019/Office 365

The first thing to do is to download the Office Deploy Tool (ODT) from Microsoft.
Now we need to generate an Office configuration file using the Office 365 Client Configuration Service.
Below is the configuration file I generated that I’m using for this walkthrough. With this file I will be:
- Deploying a volume licensed Office 2019 64-bit with Visio and Project Professional 2019.
- I’m excluding OneDrive, Groove, and OneNote.
- The Office 2019 installer will automatically remove older versions of Office applications.
- Licensing and activation will be via an Office 2019 KMS key and Active Directory-based activation.

<Configuration ID="alotofnumbers-and-letters">
  <Info Description="Information for a description" />
  <Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="PerpetualVL2019" SourcePath="\\contoso.com\NETLOGON\office-19-x64" AllowCdnFallback="FALSE" ForceUpgrade="TRUE">
    <Product ID="ProPlus2019Volume" PIDKEY="XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX">
      <Language ID="MatchOS" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneNote" />
    </Product>
    <Product ID="VisioPro2019Volume" PIDKEY="XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX">
      <Language ID="MatchOS" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneNote" />
    </Product>
    <Product ID="ProjectPro2019Volume" PIDKEY="XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX">
      <Language ID="MatchOS" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneNote" />
    </Product>
  </Add>
  <Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="0" />
  <Property Name="PinIconsToTaskbar" Value="FALSE" />
  <Property Name="SCLCacheOverride" Value="0" />
  <Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="FALSE" />
  <Updates Enabled="TRUE" UpdatePath="\\contoso.com\NETLOGON\office-19-x64" />
  <RemoveMSI />
  <AppSettings>
    <Setup Name="Company" Value="Contoso Corp" />
  </AppSettings>
  <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />
  <Logging Level="Off" />
</Configuration>

Downloading Office 2019/Office 365

Once you have your Office configuration .XML file and the Office Deployment Tool we’re ready to download Office ready to install.

Create a folder for your Office installation. For this example, I’m deploying Office 2019 64 bit, so I’ll create a folder called Office-19-x64.
Once you’ve created the folder, put the Office Deployment Tool and Office configuration .XML in the folder.
Open up a command line prompt and make sure the current directory is inside the Office folder you created.
Run the following command to download Office from the Office CDN:

`1`	`setup.exe /download config-19-x64.xml`

The Office Deployment Tool will download the Office products configured in the configuration file. If you specified a local network path for the install source location, the files will be downloaded to that location. The Office Deployment Tool will create a folder called Office. Whenever you run the above command, the Office Deployment Tool will sync the version of Office in the download location with the Office CDN for the configured version in the configuration file.

Installing Office 2019/Office 365

To install Office, we’ll need to run the Office Deployment Tool once again from the command line. If you haven’t already you should put the Office files downloaded previously, the Office Deployment Tool and the configuration file all in the same folder. Keep the downloaded Office files in the folder called Office.

On the computer you wish to deploy Office to, run the following command:

`1`	`PATH-TO-OFFICE-DEPLOYMENT-TOOL\setup.exe /configure PATH-TO-OFFICE-CONFIGURATION-FILE\config-19-x64.xml`

After some time, Office should be installed as per your preferences set in the configuration file.

Group Policy for Office 2019/Office 365

The ADMX files for Office 2019 and Office 365 are backwards compatible with Office 2016 and are available for download from Microsoft here.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.

-Mike