Maintenance wizard

  • Thread starter Thread starter Billy K
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Billy K

Can anyone tell me in detail what the maintenance wizard is for?

I am familiar with transforms and customized installations with previous
version of office, but this is very new to me.

I am currently having all sorts of difficulties modifying settings.

Thanks
 
The Custom Maintenance Wizard in the Office Kit is used to update an
existing installation of Office or any Office program, including Outlook,
(one deployed using the CIW) to change the components installed, add/remove
registry entries, change Outlook mail profile settings etc.

What in particular are you having difficulty with?
 
I have a old image for a notebook with office 2003 already installed.

We have just migrated to Exchange and this will involve reconfiguring
everyone's notebook. I figured I'd like to update the image to reflect
these configurations and then deploy that.

I just want to simply the process and ensure I can image and setup the
machines quickly. I just need a method of changing the outlook settings. A
method where outlook is setup automatically for every user on first login.

Hope this makes sense. Thank you for all your work.
 
If all you need is to change the Outlook mail profile settings, that's easy.
Use either the CIW or CMW to set the desired Outlook profile options, then
export the settings to a .prf file using the Export Settings button that
you'll see on the last mail profile screen. Deploy that file to your users
along with the ImportPRF registry value (described in the Office Resource
Kit) pointing to the .prf file. The next time the user starts Outlook,
Outlook will process the .prf file make the changes.
 
I also want to ensure they have the current office version & if they do to
ensure all the features that are part of our base image. Trying to have all
computers uniform / standard. This is why I am trying to persist with the
transform, although as far as I can tell it does not uninstall or reinstall
features.

Had a go with CIW and CMW again, while using CMW I was able to push changes
out. I was able to modify features installed and also configure exchange
which was great. Is there any way I can remove any current pop accounts,
because it still keeps the pop account as default setup.

I cannot deploy new settings or change office features using CIW, and not
sure how people are using it to do that.
 
The .mst transform is a use-once option at initial setup, unless you want to
keep installing over the existing copy of Office. If you want to make change
settings or features later, you use the Custom Maintenance Wizard.

It is not possible to remove POP or IMAP accounts with any of the Office
deployment/update tools. You could, however, create a totally new profile.
That's probably the best solution, assuming you also send around
instructions on how to migrate the data in the .pst file.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Your advice is spot on. I just created a new profile and this worked well.
It actually creates a backup for the old profiles which is good anyway if
you ever need to revert back.

Initially if I have legacy clients for example office 2000 / office XP I
will use the mst transform to install Office 2003 over the top as the
initial setup. I presume this will uninstall all legacy versions as I
specify in the CIW.

Once I have office 2003 loaded I now rely on Custom Maintenance Wizard to
make any changes such as configurations, install and uninstall any
additional features.

Thanks for your help today. Very appreciated.
 
Sounds like you have it all worked out!

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
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