I recently came across an issue where a MEMCM) Global condition was detecting the Office bitness (architecture), but only to one specific version(example below). This lead to a requirement issue where the computer was running another version of Office that wasn’t covered by the global condition. With that said, we still needed a requirement only for the architecture of Office, while the version was not that important for now. I’ve uploaded a new script to Technet Gallery that returns the Office Bitness no matter what version is installed (from Office XP to the latest). In this post, I’ll describe how to use the script with a MEMCM global condition as a requirement for an application. MEMCM Global Condition Office Bitness Requirement Download the Office Bitness detection script from Github The script The script is looking at the Bitness registry key of Outlook. The script will return the value of Bitness. … Read More
How to setup Telemetry Dashboard for Office 2016
An area that is hard for IT admins to get feedback is how Office is doing in their environment. Unless users call in for support, there is not much more information easily available. A less known Office feature is available for free as part of the Office suite. The Office Telemetry Dashboard can help assess all kind of compatibility issues that could happen as part of a major upgrade and help to identify the potential risk ahead of an upgrade. The Office Telemetry dashboard was first introduced with Office 2013. It was released to replace the previous solution Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM). The Office telemetry could be used in the following scenarios : Planning a major upgrade to Office 2016 from older versions Monitor your Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted) installations as they received newer major build ahead of the Semi-annual Channel In this post, we will describe how to plan, install … Read More
Switch from Office 365 Deferred Channel to Current Channel using SCCM
Today, I’ve been ask to switch a couple of hundred Office 365 Deferred Channel to Current Channel. At first, I wasn’t sure if there was a supported way to do that. I start googling around and I ran into this Microsoft support article. Before going technical, you maybe wondering why you would want to do this. Well, for a couple of reason : You just installed Office 365, and you’re on the Deferred Channel and want to change to Current Channel A fix has been released and you want to move to the Current Channel to receive it A new feature has been released and you want to move to the Current Channel to receive it All actions in this blog post has been executed on a Windows 10 64-bits computer and Office 365 32-bits (Deferred Version 1602 – build 6741.2071). Create SCCM Office 365 Switch Channel Script The script provided by … Read More
Office 365 2016 Activation Problem after Upgrade from Office 365 2013
In a previous post, we covered how to upgrade Office 365 2013 to Office 365 2016. We came across an issue after the upgrade is completed. Once you start any Office application, Office 365 2016 ask for activation, which will fail if attempted and then ask for repair. This can be quite confusing for user. [su_box title=”Error message” style=”glass” title_color=”#F0F0F0″] We’re sorry, but Excel has run into an error that is preventing it from working correctly. Excel will need to be closed as a result. Would you like us to repair now? [/su_box] Following the activation try, an error prompts : In this post, we will detail how to fix this activation issue as part of the upgrade process. Problem While the Office 365 upgrade is running, the UserOperations registry key is removed. Solution Re-create the registry key after the upgrade of Office 365 is completed. We will use … Read More
How to upgrade Office 365 2013 to Office 365 2016 Click-to-run
With the end of support for Office 365 2013 on Febuary 28 2017, administrators must take action to upgrade Office 365 2013 to Office 365 2016. In previous posts, we covered how to manage updates for Office 365 2016 with SCCM and describe the Office 365 dashboard. Those posts applies to the 2016 version of Office 365. This post will cover everything you need to know to upgrade Office 365 2013 to Office 365 2016 with SCCM. Upgrade Office 365 2013 Prerequisites Latest Office 365 2016 version : Version 16.0.6965.2117 from January 2017 was used for this post We selected the Deferred Channel Latest Office deployment tool SCCM 2012 and later Create Download.xml and Configuration.xml File Office 365 Click-to-run installations, are controlled by XML files. We will create and use one XML file to download the Office 365 bits for an offline installation/upgrade and another XML for the configuration. The download.xml specify the Channel to be used, the product and language : … Read More
Deploy Office 2016 using SCCM 2012 – Click-to-Run Version
This blog post will describe how to Deploy Office 2016 using SCCM 2012. This procedure is for the Office 2016 Click-to-Run version (Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus) not for the complete Office 2016 Professional Plus version. It will guide you in every steps required to deploy Office 2016 to your users. The mains steps are : Preparing the installation Create the SCCM application Create the deployment type Deploy the application Step 1 | Preparing Office 2016 installation The first step is to create a Download.xml file that we’ll use to download the latest version of Office 365 Pro Plus (2016). Read the Reference for Click-to-Run xml file to know more about the available options. Download the Office Deployment Tools After downloading the tool, run OfficeDeploymentTool.exe Extract the files to a drive on your computer You’ll end up with 2 files (Setup.exe and Configuration.xml) Create a Download.xml file and copy this content : <Configuration> <Add SourcePath=”C:\Office 2016″ … Read More