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How to install Microsoft Office 365 with Dell KACE K1000 in ten simple steps (aka Ten shades of Office 365 distribution)

In this article I explain how to create a Managed Installation to deploy in few simple steps Microsoft Office 365 with the Dell KACE K1000.
What you will need:
Let's begin then!
  1. Download the Office 2013 Deployment Tool for Click-to-Run and run it: it will ask you a directory where to place the extracted files (less than 1MB)
  2. Create an empty local directory to store the installation sources of Office 365 ( c:\TempOffice in this example )
  3. Amend the configuration.xml provided by default to point to that directory. Your configuration should look like the following one:
<Configuration>
   <Add SourcePath="c:\TempOffice" OfficeClientEdition="32" >
    <Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">
      <Language ID="nl-nl" />
    </Product>
  </Add>
</Configuration>

 4. Now from the command line issue the command setup.exe /download configuration.xml and wait until the download is complete (~1 GB)
 5. Browse to the target directory c:\TempOffice in this example ) and move all the content in the directory where you have the setup.exe and configuration.xml files

At this point you need a batch that will kick in the installation. The batch needs t create a temporary directory, copy all the files and folders of the current directory there and launch the setup.exe this time with the /configure option.

This step is required because the SourcePath parameter is not able to handle relative paths (e.g.: ..\myfiles  OR .\) but only absolute paths (e.g.: c:\tempOffice\)

Do not worry! I wrote the script for you:

@ECHO OFF
REM Script written by Marco S. Zuppone for DELL.
REM Try it before to use in production !! 
IF NOT EXIST "C:\TempOffice" (MKDIR "C:\TempOffice") ELSE (DEL "C:\TempOffice\*.*" /F /S /Q)
XCOPY /E *.* "C:\TempOffice"
PUSHD %cd%
CD "C:\TempOffice"
setup.exe /configure configuration.xml
POPD
RMDIR /S /Q "c:\Tempoffice"

At the end your directory with all the content should look like this:


    6. Copy the folder on a test machine, open the DOS command line, change to that directory and run the batch (I called it, in my example installOffice.bat)
    Verify that the installation is correct and all is fine. Force the inventory of the test machine after the installation has been successfully performed.

    7. Select all the files in the folder (Office subfolder and all the content) and create a ZIP file of the content.

    8.Look for the Inventory of the test machine, open it and look for the Office 365 in the Installed Programs section.


    9. Click on the Office 365 record and associate to it the ZIP file that you created at the point 7

    10. Create now the Managed Installation under the Deployments menu: the only focal point here is to use Override Default and put in the Parameters field the name of the batch that will perform the installation.


Job Done. I'd suggest, as usal, to test the managed distribution against one or more test clients before to go in production.


Comments

  • Good information thank you.

    You can create a configuration.xml file with the script current directory like this :

    ECHO ^<Configuration^> > "%~dp0configuration.xml"
    ECHO ^<Add SourcePath="%~dp0" OfficeClientEdition="32" ^> >> "%~dp0configuration.xml"
    ECHO ^<Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail"^> >> "%~dp0configuration.xml"
    ECHO ^<Language ID="fr-fr" /^> >> "%~dp0configuration.xml"
    ECHO ^</Product^> >> "%~dp0configuration.xml"
    ECHO ^</Add^> >> "%~dp0configuration.xml"
    ECHO ^</Configuration^> >> "%~dp0configuration.xml"

    The ^ are escape character for < and >

    With that, you don't have to copy all files and folders to a temporary directory. - gwir 8 years ago
    • hello. do you add your local source path in the second line? - jrodela09 6 years ago
      • hello %~dp0 mean path of the current script, so the script must be execute from the source path - gwir 6 years ago
  • How do you handle 32 bit vs 64bit installations of office? Can you associate both 32 and 64bit zip files to the same "installed software" item of Office 365? - MannyL 7 years ago
    • Hello. i do not work with and for Kace anymore but sa far as I recall Office 64bit should appear in the control panel as Office 365 x64.
      So you associate the 32 bit edition to Office 365 and the 64 edition to Office 365 x64.
      Kind regards,
      MArco - StockTrader - StockTrader 7 years ago
  • Hi, Thanks for the reply. I checked and I only see one entry for Office 365. KACE lumps x64 and 32bit in one entry. - MannyL 7 years ago
  • Has anyone done an upgrade from 2013 to O365? I was thinking about doing a Kscript that does a verify that Office 2013 was installed and O365 was not, if so, then remove 2013 and install O365.

    Anyone know of a good verify step you could do? i was thinking maybe on the directories

    "test" - brucegoose03 6 years ago
    • I have also been working on this but still have not got it working yet. I have created and uninstalled and an installer. Yet I have not got a working combination of the two just yet. - cspeight 6 years ago
      • Have you tried it in 2 independent steps? - g1knj99 6 years ago
  • Was wondering if anyone could help with the dreaded " Couldn't Install Error Code: 30088-1015" Set mine up per the above but this is the error I get when trying to install. It's not a network issue as I can install Office just fine via the ClicktoRun setup file. It's not AV (none). It's not firewall (off). It's not proxy settings and it's not drive space. I've never had success with the Office Deployment tools was hoping this was the secret but so far no dice. The files do get copied and setup is executing it just won't begin the install. - kenrinc 6 years ago
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