Deploying Office with Systems Management Server

Microsoft Office 2000 Setup installs a number of applications and features in addition to the standard Office 2000 suite. For example, using Office Setup, you can install Microsoft Outlook 2000, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, and Microsoft PhotoDraw™ 2000 separately from your main Office installation.

You can leverage Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) to install specific Office applications or features and to ensure that any prerequisite applications are installed prior to your deployment of Office 2000.

Systems Management Server can perform the standard installation for a number of Office configurations. The following table lists the choices that are available, as well as the corresponding package definition files (PDFs) and INI files.

 Note    Each of these PDF files can be used only with the corresponding Office application or set of applications. For example, Fp2000.pdf can be used to deploy the standalone FrontPage 2000 application; it cannot be used to deploy FrontPage 2000 with Office 2000 Premium. Only SMS 1.2 requires INI files.

Installing PhotoDraw 2000 separately

In addition to using the PDFs and INI files to install specific Office applications, Systems Management Server can be used to facilitate separate installations in other ways. The following example of the PhotoDraw installation highlights a common strategy.

For PhotoDraw to work properly, users must be running Microsoft Windows 95/98 or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3 or later. In addition, the following software must be installed:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later.
• Microsoft DirectX® version 6.0 (Windows 95/98 only).

When you install PhotoDraw from the command line or from a network location, Setup does not detect the existence of the prerequisite applications. If you plan to use either of these network strategies to install PhotoDraw, consider using Systems Management Server to facilitate the process.

You can use the software inventory capabilities of Systems Management Server to create a machine group or collection that meets the required criteria. Not only can Systems Management Server detect the existence of the prerequisite applications, but it can also trigger their installation if the software is not found.

See also

For more information about installing PhotoDraw, see Using Acme Setup to Install PhotoDraw.

For more information about installing Outlook 2000 separately from Office, see Installing Outlook 2000 After Installing Office 2000.