Summary
This article details some reasons why Office should not be repackaged, and provides alternatives for Office deployments
Synopsis
As an application packager you may at some point be requested to repackage Microsoft Office, or once of Office?s applications. This article will discuss if you can repackage Microsoft Office with Adminstudio as well as provide some alternative solutions.
Discussion
There will be times when you come across a package that is not a valid candidate for repackaging, and Microsoft applications will usually fall into this category, and Office is no different.
One of the Repackaging Wizard best practices is to only repackage setups that are not Windows Installer setups. Microsoft will typically use an MSI that has an external UI driven by a setup.exe. Since these packages are already Windows Installer format they should not be repackaged. If these applications are repackaged then Microsoft will not be able to support the product, and you will be unable to properly apply updates to the products. There is also the chance that several things will be ignored, causing the applications to not function completely, or become unstable. When it comes to Office it is best to use the tools that Microsoft provides to customize Office deployments.
For several releases of Office Microsoft has provided a special customization tool that will allow you to customize your Office deployment for your environment. These tools should always be used over repackaging for customizing Office deployments. Several versions of the Office Customization Tool can be accessed from the following links:
Office Customization Tool (OCT) overview for Office 2007Office 2010 Administrative Template files (ADM, ADMX/ADML) and Office Customization Tool downloadOffice Customization Tool (OCT) reference for Office 2013Office Customization Tool (OCT) Help: Overview for Office 2016 Additional Information
Repackaging Wizard Best Practices
