It’s actually pretty easy to deploy Office 2016 with App-V. Microsoft has done much of the leg work for you with an integrated packager. To start, you will need the Office Deployment Tool, found here: https://microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49117&wa=wsignin1.0.
Download and Package Content
You will need to launch the tool to extract it. After extraction, you will have a setup.exe file and a XML file. You need to modify the XML file with the products that you want to download. Here’s what it looks like if we want the Office Suite, Project, and Visio:
Note the three products, and the SourcePath parameter. You must specify the SourcePath parameter so that the setup program knows where to download the content. I suggest you make this directory the same as the location of setup.exe.
After you have your XML file, copy it to the same directory as the setup.exe program and download the Office content with this command:
setup.exe /download configuration.xml
After download, you can package it for App-V with this command (if you have problems with this step, see the end of this blog post):
setup.exe /packager configuration.xml “C:\Office2016\Office-App-V”
When it is done packaging, copy the Office-App-V directory to a network location.
Add to App-V Client
You can use PowerShell to add the App-V package to your clients. First, you must enable scripting with this command:
set-appvclientconfiguration -enablepackagescripts $true
Next, I download the App-V content directory to the local machine. I think it’s cleaner that way, but it’s probably not required. Next, import and publish the package with this command:
add-appvclientpackage “<path to App-V content directory and .appv file>” | publish-appvclientpackage -global
Example:
add-appvclientpackage “C:\Windows\Temp\Office-App-V\AppVPackages\ProjectProRetail_x86.appv” | publish-appvclientpackage -global
Now you should have a working Office suite that’s deployed with App-V. Here’s a sample PowerShell script that will add it to the App-V client start to finish:
copy-item .\appv-package C:\Windows\Temp\Project-AppV -recurse
restart-service -name AppVClient
Import-Module AppvClient
Set-AppvClientConfiguration -EnablePackageScripts $true
Add-AppvClientPackage “C:\Windows\Temp\Project-AppV\AppVPackages\ProjectProRetail_en-us_x86.appv” | Publish-AppvClientPackage -global
Note the restart service command – I found I had better success scripting it if I restarted the service. Sometimes I would receive an error about the package being in use, and restarting the service resolved it.
Issues
One issue I came across when packaging the application for App-V was that sometimes it would error. I found some forum posts online that the problem went away if you packaged from an account that had a username of 8 characters or less. This worked for me, though I cannot guarantee it will work for you.
Another way to package the application if you have problems is to do it manually. To start, go ahead and run the packaging command listed above. When it errors, go to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp and copy the “Microsoft Office” directory to your working directory (C:\Office2016 for me). I would remove the space in-between “Microsoft” and “Office” – it makes the command easier. Now run this command, again assuming your working directory is C:\Office2016.
C:\Office2016\MicrosoftOffice\root\flattener\flattener.exe /source:”C:\Office2016\MicrosoftOffice” /dest:”C:\Office2016\Office2016-App-V” /version:”16.0.7070.2026″ /productreleaseids:”O365ProPlusRetail,VisioProRetail,ProjectProRetail” /cultures:”en-US,x-none” /platform:”x86″
I’m sure in this command, you can spot the things that you need to change for your environment. First, any path that may be different, Second, the version parameter should match what version was downloaded. You can find this by opening the content folder (referenced by SourcePath in your XML file), and going to Office > Data. The version is folder name listed there:
Third, modify the ProductReleaseIDs parameter to include the products you are deploying. Finally, the language and platform.
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