Patch Mgmt > Office Source

Office Source displays the current Office installation source location. This data is only available following the initial patch scan. Only machines with Office or an Office component application installed are displayed on this screen. Multiple entries for a given machine may be seen because the machine contains one or more Office component applications, such as FrontPage or Project, that were installed separately from their own installation source and were not part of the Office installation.

The displayed source location may be changed from the default CD-ROM (the typical installation source) to a network share or a directory on a local hard drive. This optional source may be configured to be read-only. It must contain an exact copy of the installation media contents including all hidden files and/or directories. By changing the installation source to a network share or a local directory, those patches that require the Office installation source for installation can get access without prompting the user for the installation media.

Usage:

To use this feature, the machine must have a credential set. The Agent must have a credential to access the alternate Office source location in case a patch is being installed when no user is logged into the machine.

Add the network share as a UNC path (i.e., \\machinename\sharename) or a local directory as a fully qualified path (i.e., C:\OfficeCD\Office2003Pro) in the installation source text box. Select the machine whose Office source location you want to change, and click on the Apply button. The specified location will be validated to be sure that the location is accessible from the machine and that the installation source in the specified location contains the correct edition and version of Office or the Office component application. Only after the validation succeeds, will the machine's registry be modified to use the specified location.

The original installation source (typically the CD-ROM) can be restored at any time. Select the machine whose Office source location you want to reset back to its original state, and click on the Reset button.

Processing:

The installed Office Source information (location, product code, etc.) is required to permit validation of the installation source modified by an admin. The standard patch scan process collects this information and includes it with the patch scan results. This data is placed in the database along with the rest of the patch data when the patch scan results are processed following the patch scan. Office Source information will not appear in the Office Source page for existing systems until a patch scan has been completed. For all machines added after verssion 4.7 has been installed, the initial patch scan will collect this data making it available available for initial patching.

When changing the Office Source to a new location (network share, etc.), the change is not immediate. It will take several minutes to perform the validation before the machine's registry is updated with the new validated Office Source location. When a new location is entered for a machine in the Office Source page and the "Apply" button is selected, a script is scheduled for the selected machine to perform the validation process. In this process, the new source location is searched for the appropriate Office MSI file, and it is copied back to the machine's temp directory to validate accessibility to the new location. Then the MSI file is checked to be sure that its internal product code matches the product code of the Office installation on the machine. A small XML file is created with the appropriate validation data and the MSI file is deleted from the machine. This small XML file is then returned to the KServer and is processed (very similar to the patch scan processing). The contents of this small XML file are evaluated and the database is updated with the validation results. If the validation is successful, a new script is executed on the machine to update the machine's registry with the new Office Source location and the Office Source page will show the status of "Office Source Updated".

Note: To take advantage of this feature, set the Office patches' command line switch to "/Q" to prevent the presentation of the Office patch installation dialog from being presented. Go to the Patch Mgmt > Command Line screen to accomplish this.

Note: Even though the process of deploying Office patches can be greatly simplified by eliminating the need for the user to provide the installation source media when requested by the patch, other issues may still be present.

Some patches, and particularly Office service packs, will still display progress dialogs even though the silent installation switch ("/Q") is used. These will not require any user intervention.

Some patches and service packs will display a modal dialog indicating the update has completed, again even though the silent installation switch ("/Q") is used. This will require the user to click on the OK button to dismiss the dialog. Until this happens, the patch installation script will appear to be hung and will not complete until this dialog is dismissed!

Some Office service packs will fail for apparently no reason. Checking the machine's application event log reveals that another Office component service pack failed. This has been observed with Office 2003 service pack 2 requiring the availablility of FrontPage 2003 service pack 2. When the Office source loaction for the FrontPage 2003 was configured, the Office 2003 service pack 2 finally successfully installed.