Microsoft Office Suite
It is very important that the same systems liaison performs the entire installation and configuration routines without any other user logging on in between. According to Geoffrey S., if the routines are interrupted, the Office suite can become unworkable (noone knows why) and the computer must be formatted before the Office suite can ever work again. Indeed, it has happened at least once in the DLC: to WSID1922 in Spring 2004.
Installation
- In Windows Explorer, double click smathersnt2\Office2k\setup.exe.
- Click past any boxes that complain about missing files and whatnot.
- Wait for the configuration, then click OK to the successfully completed prompt.
- Double click smathersnt2\Office2k\Disk2\setup.exe.
- Click past any boxes that complain about missing files and whatnot.
- Wait for the configuration, then click OK to the successfully completed prompt.
- This routine does not install FrontPage- and that's a good thing.
- Restart and wait for the settings update.
Configuration
- The network installation you just performed does not install all the
components that users need. That's just how it works. This procedure
will install more features (though still not all of them):
- One at a time, open every Office application- even those which the user does not think they will ever use.
- Open one of its respective files, such as an XLS file for Excel.
- Make some changes to it, then close without saving.
- Open the help file, and open up a topic.
- Close help.
- Close the program.
- Open up another Office program.
- Repeat this awful task until you have configured all of them: Access, Excel, Power Point, Publisher, and Word. For Outlook, see Configurations Per User.
- Restart.
If the designated user needs official letterhead for Microsoft Word documents, follow this procedure.
Patching
Office doesn't get patched nearly as often [as the OS], and when it does
there is seldom a data-threatening reason. If you have the time to work in
an Office check when you are doing the Windows Update, it would be a good
thing, but it isn't critical enough to justify doing routinely otherwise.
However, if any component of Office starts giving you trouble on a
particular computer, a good first solution attempt would be to check for
updates.
Bill Covey 2002-04-30
- Point a web browser to http://office.microsoft.com/productupdates/.
- Download and install all updates. Pay attention the the screen propmts, because some updates, like a Service Release, must be downloaded before, and separately from, others.
- And once you think all updates are done, go back and check again. One update may have given rise to the need for another.
- It may be prudent then to go to the Windows Update site to see if any of these Office updates have created the need for a Windows critical update.
