You have to remember that when Administrative Installations were first introduced there was no Microsoft Update or WSUS allowing for mass patching of Office products. That fact, along with Office 2007 not supporting Administrative Installation, is why Admin Installs are no longer recommended. Tim
-----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 9:10 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: MSI packagers? On Feb 12, 2008 11:04 PM, Joseph L. Casale <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Not sure about the reason (forgot) but MS no longer suggests to pre-patch > the admin install point. I think the explanation is on the ORK page that > details how to do the GPO deployment. I went looking. Are you talking about this: Distributing Office 2003 Product Updates [ORK 2003] http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ork2003/HA011402381033.aspx My interpretation of the above: If you have clients install from an admin install point, and then later update the admin install point, then clients will have to reinstall the entire MS Office suite to install that update. That's obviously a fairly heavy-weight method. Installing updates as "patches" to the clients directly is likely much more efficient. That could mean manually administered GPO deployment of patch files, or a patch-management system like Windows Update, WSUS, SMS, etc. However, when configuring the initial baseline admin install point (before deployment to any clients), one can still pre-patch with as many updates as you like. The initial client installations will then already be updated. It's only updating an admin install point *after* you've started deploying to clients that triggers the "total reinstall for one tiny update" syndrome. No? -- Ben ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
