Office Registry Keys

[Michael R. Emmert]

Office Registry keys

We have a very large network (22,000, All local). Most workstations are
2kpro, with a few XP, small Number of NT4, and a couple of 9x. (the 9x
machines can be ignored at the present time)
We are needing to run a query against each workstation to determine the
following...
a. Version of Office (97, 2000, 2002, XP)
b. Build of Office version
c. What service pack has been aplied for that Office Version
d. What patches have been applied for Office

Purpose is to push updates to all systems.

Our query ability can look at the registry, but would have problems running
against specific office files on each system. We can do the latter, but
would need to modify too many things to easily accomplish it.

Therefore, we are wanting to know the different registry keys where the
above information can be located. We have done a search on the net and in MS
KB's, but have not found anything definitive. Also we have closely examined
the registry settings for different OS's and Office versions. There does not
appear to be much consistency. We have found numerous keys for Office. One
problem is that when doing an upgrade from one version of office to another,
many of the previous version's reg keys remain. This will confuse our query
unless we know of the exact key information (there needs to be unwavering
consistency for key information within a version). Also the information
under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\... does not match information under
HKLM/Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\P
roducts\904000001E872D116...\... In addition, when comparing the
information
from Help\About, this does not match any of the registry information.

Any help would be appreciated

Michael R.

 

[Walter Schulz]

a. Version of Office (97, 2000, 2002, XP)
b. Build of Office version
c. What service pack has been aplied for that Office Version
d. What patches have been applied for Office

Purpose is to push updates to all systems.

There is one big question:
What do you mean with "Update"? Do you want to preserve the installed
version of Office, only applying SPs/patches?

If you want to install Office XP on all workstations: I cannot see why
you need the information. Just run the Office setup prepared by CIW
and you're done (if disk space available of course).

There is one key which exists for all Office Versions:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Common\InstallRoot
Within you will find an entry "Path" which will point to the Office
files.
A little scripting and you will be able to browse all keys below
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office
and grab the valid install path.
Or you may just query the list of all possible versions.

Now you can browse the directory and grab the version info for files
like WINWORD.EXE or else.

Not the perfect solution (MS versioning is sometimes really
frustrating) but it might be easy to handle.

Ciao, Walter

 

[Jerold Schulman]

Office Registry keys

We have a very large network (22,000, All local). Most workstations are
2kpro, with a few XP, small Number of NT4, and a couple of 9x. (the 9x
machines can be ignored at the present time)
We are needing to run a query against each workstation to determine the
following...
a. Version of Office (97, 2000, 2002, XP)
b. Build of Office version
c. What service pack has been aplied for that Office Version
d. What patches have been applied for Office

Purpose is to push updates to all systems.

Our query ability can look at the registry, but would have problems running
against specific office files on each system. We can do the latter, but
would need to modify too many things to easily accomplish it.

Therefore, we are wanting to know the different registry keys where the
above information can be located. We have done a search on the net and in MS
KB's, but have not found anything definitive. Also we have closely examined
the registry settings for different OS's and Office versions. There does not
appear to be much consistency. We have found numerous keys for Office. One
problem is that when doing an upgrade from one version of office to another,
many of the previous version's reg keys remain. This will confuse our query
unless we know of the exact key information (there needs to be unwavering
consistency for key information within a version). Also the information
under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\... does not match information under
HKLM/Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\P
roducts\904000001E872D116...\... In addition, when comparing the
information
from Help\About, this does not match any of the registry information.

Any help would be appreciated

Michael R.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Common\ProductVersion
or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\ProductVersion
or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Common\ProductVersion
or
etc....

The highest one you find is the answer.


Jerold Schulman
Windows: General MVP
JSI, Inc.
http://www.jsiinc.com