That was the great thing about ActiveSetup; it was a way to force the “self-heal” of an application at logon so that the settings were immediately available, and it was tied directly to the application package instead of being managed externally. You didn’t have to wait for a shortcut or file association entry point, you just forced the issue at first logon.
-Phil From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Miller, Todd Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 6:35 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [mssms] RE: Office 365 CTR Installer I could be doing them wrong but I have little love for GPPs for user (HKCU) settings – they are “OK” for HKLM stuff usually but not so great for HKCU settings. When I use GPPs, I use item level targeting – you need to wait until the application sets its own defaults on the user first launch before you reset the defaults to your liking. This causes our defaults to be set on the 2nd run of the application after a login cycle after the first run on the application instead of the first run. So that is pretty confusing for the user. Run the application once and get Microsoft’s defaults, log out/log in to have the organization’s default overwrite Microsoft’s defaults. Also it is not unheard of for a client to “forget” that it has applied a runonce GPP and re-apply it, wiping out the user’s chosen settings. Ugly. You will eventually have an event that makes you regret using GPPs for user based settings. I’ve been dealing with GPPs due to the removal of IE maintenance mode in IE 10 and 11. Now the only way to deploy a new trusted site to deployed systems is to use GPP and they are not nearly as nice and easy as IE preference mode was. From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Schwan, Phil Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 4:51 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: RE: [mssms] RE: Office 365 CTR Installer Pity that, because it’s actually an extremely easy, useful tool from an app packaging standpoint. I’ve been able to solve a lot of profile-based issues for apps with that feature. -Phil _________________________________________________________________ Phil Schwan | Technical Architect, Enterprise Windows Services Microsoft VTSP ([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>) Project Leadership Associates | 2000 Town Center, Suite 1900, Southfield, MI 48075 Lync: 312.756.1626 Mobile: 419.262.5133 www.projectleadership.net<http://www.projectleadership.net/> [linkedin_logo-19x20] <http://www.linkedin.com/in/philschwan> [Twitter-Logo1-20x20] <https://twitter.com/philschwan> [wordpress-logo3] <http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/author/philschwan> [Description: Description: Description: Arrow email]Lead with Strategy. Leverage Technology. Deliver Results. From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Daniel Ratliff Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 3:55 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: RE: [mssms] RE: Office 365 CTR Installer My counter-argument, our app packaging team started trying to use this, so I reached out to Microsoft. http://helgeklein.com/blog/2012/03/get-rid-of-active-setup/ ActiveSetup is undocumented because it is not meant to be used, it was originally used internally within Microsoft for IE4 to IE5/6 upgrades. See the note below from Aaron Margosis. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aruns_blog/archive/2011/11/02/10176957.aspx It must be pointed out that the "Active Setup" mechanism has never been publicly documented and Microsoft will not necessarily support any use of Active Setup by any component that doesn't ship within the Windows product. There are lots of undocumented mechanisms. In general, people representing Microsoft should not recommend their use -- at least not without plenty of caveats. My $0.02. Straight from the mouth of Aaron Margosis last year: this is undocumented and unsupported from a Microsoft standpoint and should not be used. It is recommended you use the recommended alternatives such as Group Policy Preferences. Daniel Ratliff From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ryan Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 3:40 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [mssms] RE: Office 365 CTR Installer Here is some information on it. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aruns_blog/archive/2011/06/20/active-setup-registry-key-what-it-is-and-how-to-create-in-the-package-using-admin-studio-install-shield.aspx It runs once on user logon (doesn't have to be first logon, it just runs once) and will run whatever command line you specify. This will be run as the current user so you can use it to run a script and change the office preferences to whatever you want in HKCU. Make sure there are no prompts and that it runs quickly as the logon process will wait for this to finish. Changing registry keys should be fine with this method. On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 2:17 PM, Marcum, John <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Can you please give me more info? I’m not familiar with that so I don’t know how it may be able to help me. From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Ryan Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 1:27 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [mssms] RE: Office 365 CTR Installer Active setup? On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 12:41 PM, Marcum, John <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: The problem with that, as you know Jason, is that I cannot force settings upon anyone. I work for an organization that has 400 owners. We default everything the way we think it should be but different people like things different ways so we allow them to change settings as they see fit. From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Jason Sandys Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 11:51 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [mssms] RE: Office 365 CTR Installer Group Policy FTW J From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Marcum, John Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 11:26 AM To: SMS List ([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>) Subject: [mssms] Office 365 CTR Installer I’m curious how others are deploying office using CTR technology. In the legal industry we heavily customize office to fit our needs. Word is probably the most important application to our business. I’ve learned that there is no customization tool for CTR like there is with the old thick installer for office. My MS rep tells me I have no choice but to use the CTR installer because that’s what we are licensed for. He went to the Office product team and they let him know in no uncertain terms that they have no intention of giving the same customization ability to ctr that exists in thick installer versions of office. I’m being told that I’ll have to modify reg keys to customize office. Frankly that stinks! ________________________________ John Marcum MCITP, MCTS, MCSA Desktop Architect Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP ________________________________ [H_Logo] ________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail is from a law firm and may be protected by the attorney-client or work product privileges. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender by replying to this e-mail and then delete it from your computer. 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