Assigned package tries to install and then just sits there

[Steve Stormont]

I have made a OU which contains user accounts and computers from our one
office. I then made a group policy on that OU which assigns Office 2003 to
a certain Windows 2000 computer. The permissions on the policy list the
computer which needs Office and the "Apply policy" permission is checked.

On the folder which holds the Office 2003 installation, a security group
which contains that computer has read permissions.

When the computer is booted, it brings up the message "Installing
package Microsoft Office 2003" and then just sits there forever. You
eventually have to reset the computer and when it comes back up, Office 2003
is not installed nor does it try to install it again.

This is happening on a couple of PCs, but on other PCs it works fine.
What can I do to figure out why it isn't working on certain PCs.

Steve

 

[Darren Mar-Elia]

I think the next best step is to look at the Windows Installer logs that get
generated for each Installer operation. By default, for computer-assigned
packages they will be found under c:\windows\temp and are usually files that
start with "msi", then have some random alphanumeric characters, then .log
(e.g. msi359f.log). You should be able to find the one for Office and see if
you see any indication or error messages as to why it failed. The log is not
at maximum verbosity by default so if you want, you can increase the
verbosity by modifying the policy for that computer at Computer
Configuration|Administrative Templates|Windows Components|Windows
Installer|Logging

Darren

 

[Steve Stormont]

There were no installer logs on the PC. I didn't change the registry
setting to create a more verbose log. What I did do was to uninstall
Office XP, reboot and then let the GP insall Office 2003. The .mst that
we made for Office 2003 is supposed to remove the old version of Office
and it must have been getting hung up on that step. It has worked fine
on other PCs, so I'll see how many more have trouble.

I like your idea about moving the PCs around. The only thing is when
we create a new PC. We'd have to move it from the default computers
container to the install Office OU, and then to the final resting place
of the OU for the computers in our location. With the GP applied at the
OU for the computers at our location, we only have to move PCs once from
the default computers containers to the OU for our location.

Steve

 

[lforbes]

The only thing is when we create a new PC. We’d have to move it

from the default computers container to the install Office OU, and
then to the final resting place of the OU for the computers in our
location. With the GP applied at the OU for the computers at our
location, we only have to move PCs once from the default computers
containers to the OU for our location.

I guess I don’t have that problem because we image our machines or use
RIS so they are already preinstalled with the software. If I have to
deploy new software I just move all the computers and then move them
back again.

The other way to do it is just put the Office install GP on the
Computers OU and then leave it on there. The Computers are smart. IF
they have installed Office from a GP, they don’t reinstall it. I have
left the "install Adobe" on my Computers OU for months until I was
sure every machine had it installed. It didn’t reinstall on machines
on restart that had already installed it.

I had office remove 2000 and install 2003 without a problem. Must be
the step from XP to 2003.

Cheers,
Lara

 

[Steve Stormont]

I'm not sure if it is the step from 2002 to 2003 or the fact that the
Office 2002 installation lies on an NFS server. Even with the
"Everyone" permission granted in CIFS on the NFS server, I think that
the Windows "Domain Computers" group isn't getting picked up.

Steve

 

[lforbes]

I’m not sure if it is the step from 2002 to 2003 or the fact

that the
Office 2002 installation lies on an NFS server. Even with the
"Everyone" permission granted in CIFS on the NFS server, I think that
the Windows "Domain Computers" group isn’t getting picked up

Hi,

Yes, that could be the issue. I am not familar with NFS so I can’t say
for sure. However, I do know that the "everyone" group doesn’t work
really well in cross domains. Still need to have some type of
authentication.

Looks like you will have to either not chose to have it replaced and
install to a different directory or uninstall manually.

Cheers,
Lara