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This article provides instructions and best practices on how to install and use Microsoft Office Products with VMware App Volumes.
Pre-Requisites :Review Provisioning best practices: Best Practices for Provisioning Virtual Machines and ApplicationsTechzone Whitepaper on the delivery of Office 365.The OS version used to provision Office must be the same as the version delivered. This includes Server version for RDSH deployments as well.Ensure the operating system used to provision is supported in terms of your edition of AppVolumes and is the same edition as the destination operating system.Install and configure Windows desktop OS for VDI or Windows Server for RDS. Make sure to optimize the image with the VMware OS Optimization Tool. Office 32-Bit Compared to 64-Bit Versions: You should use 32-bit versions of Microsoft Office unless your users have a particular interest in editing large Excel or Project files, in which case you can use 64-bit versions.Mixing 32-bit and 64-bit Office installations on the same machine is not supported. Installation media: Retail and OEM versions of Office cannot be used for Horizon Desktops utilizing App Volumes.if ISO files have already been downloaded for you, verify them for use with App Volumes before proceeding with deployment or App package provisioning. How can verify that my ISO is a suitable edition? You must have a folder named Admin on your ISO. If there is no such folder, this is not a suitable ISO.Check that the name of the folder that has a .WW extension such as, ProPlus.WW, Visio.WW, PrjPro.WW, and Standard.WW.Note, If there is a lowercase r before the dot, this means retail (ProPlusr.WW, Visior.WW), then this is not a suitable ISO. Support in Terms of Capture: Office 2013 - 2016: Office 365 (2013) only supported with App Volumes 2.10 or newer.Office 365 (2016) only supported with App Volumes 2.12 or newer. Office 2019: Office 2019 only supported with App Volumes 4 2006 and 2.18.8 or newer. NOTE: To keep our customers secure, VMware will not be able to support environments running an OS or an application which is not getting security updates. We do adhere to Microsoft guidance in terms of End Of Life for these products and would need an active support contract for the application.We would encourage usage of the latest available edition of App Volumes when capturing as the product is continuously improved. Office Specific Factors to consider in terms of Capture These collated guidelines are recommendations from Microsoft and references are included in the sources section of this KB. We defer to Microsoft best practice as these issues can be also seen in a traditional installation. I'm having trouble installing Visio or Project with Office: The common factors that determine if these can be installed together on the same computer are: The version of office.The installation technology: Click-to-Run or Windows Installer (MSI) If you want to deliver a standalone Office application using App Volumes to a virtual machine that has a full Office Suite installed, the standalone Office application package must be created on a system that includes that Office suite in the provisioning machine.For example:To deploy Visio Professional 2016 to virtual machines that contain Office Professional 2016 in the OS base, capture Visio Professional 2016 on a machine that already has Office Professional 2016 installed.Note : The virtual machine used to provision Office cannot include the VMware Horizon Agent. The presence of the Horizon Agent interferes with the ability to capture license information. Utilize a dedicated capture machine. Rules: You can install and use more than one version of Office on a single computer. For example: You can install and use both Office 2013 and Office 2010 on the same computer. However, it is not recommended.Installation order: You must install the earliest version of Office first.You cannot install two products together that have the same version but use different installation technologies.Office installed using Click-to-Run and Window Installer on same computer is not supportedYou cannot install two products together that use different versions of the Click-to-Run installation technology.Office 2016 (whether part of an Office 365 subscription or purchased as a suite of applications such as Office Professional 2016), cannot co-exist on the same computer as standalone Office 2013 applications.Outlook 2013 cannot coexist with any earlier version of Outlook, even if you explicitly select choose to keep. File Type Associations: The last application installed controls the file associations. If Office 2016 is installed last, Office 2013 applications will open an Office file by double-clicking it. Activation VMware App Volumes supports Key Management Service (KMS) based licensing for Office Products. As a result, only non-retail ISO media that is available from the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) must be used. The KMS server location can be configured during the provisioning(by running OSPP.VBS with appropriate options) , or the default KMS discovery process will be used along with the default Generic Volume License Keys (GVLKs) typically embedded in non-retail ISO media. For more information on provisioning machine guidelines , see Best Practices for Provisioning Virtual Machines and Application.For additional details in terms of Shared Activation, Please see the following subsection in our whitepaper on Understanding How Shared Computer Activation Works Activation tips KMS activation is the only supported method when not using Office 365 with App Volumes.Install the KMS key only on a KMS server, and do so before you implement App Volumes.Do not enter the KMS key during or after App Volumes installation or when you provision the AppStack.Be aware, that Shared Computer Activation is required when App Volumes delivers Office 365. This functionality is only available with Office 365 subscription plans that include Office 365 ProPlus. AppVolume Software Specific Guidance: Precedence: Use application precedence if you are using multiple Office AppStacks to ensure all application requirements are If an ancillary Office application (Project, Visio, OneNote, etc) are together either in the same or in separate AppStacks from the base Office AppStack, they must be virtualized after you have completed virtualizing Office. Use the Application Precedence feature available under the User Assignments. (note with a group assignment all stacks must be assigned to a single group) Writable Volume Incompatibility: When Writable Volumes are in use, please ensure that no Office components are installed in a Writable Volume.If Office components are installed in a Writable Volume, there are high chances of Office Reconfigure and Activation failures. This can often happen with as a outcome of a Office repair action. Provisioning an Office App package: Provision all appropriate office applications into a fresh Application Package.Use default installation location for all components.Do not open any Microsoft Office applications during the provisioning process Please find a Office 365 Capture Walkthrough within our Best Practices Whitepaper.Installing and Configuring Office 365 on Horizon 7 SystemsOffice 2019 Capture Walkthrough:In advance , please ensure optimization of the provisioning vm is complete and provisioning best practices are followed . Below is a shortened walkthrough of setup - Please defer to MS best practice. It is recommended that you use the Office 2016 Deployment Tool (ODT), a Microsoft management technology for installation and configuration. This executable does get updated on a semi-regular basis. For more information, see Overview of the Office Deployment Tool. When you download the ODT, you choose a folder to self-extract the files:Copy configuration-Office2019Enterprise.xml to download.xml (copy the respective sample for the intended deployed variant) Sample Configuration : <Configuration> <Add OfficeClientEdition="32" Channel="PerpetualVL2019"> <Product ID="ProPlus2019Volume"> <Language ID="en-us" /> </Product> <!-- <Product ID="VisioPro2019Volume"> <Language ID="en-us" /> </Product> <Product ID="ProjectPro2019Volume"> <Language ID="en-us" /> </Product> --> </Add> <Updates Enabled="FALSE" /> <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="True" /> </Configuration> For 64-bit Office, specify OfficeClientEdition="64". However note the caveats above.run the following command on the command prompt : setup /download .\download.xml Note : This download can take some time. Once download completes, you will see a new folder within your chosen location.Copy download.xml to configuration.xml. Change the first line to reflect what has been downloaded. From <Add OfficeClientEdition="32" Channel="PerpetualVL2019"> To <Add SourcePath="C:\Install\Office\Data\16.0.10386.20017" OfficeClientEdition="32"> You can add in the SharedComputerLicensing property , the default set to 0. <Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="1"/> You can then run setup pointed to this configuration file. setup.exe /configure configuration.xml Note: The SharedComputerLicensing property is necessary to keep VDI use cases (or Workstation with snapshots frequently restored) from exhausting your account's user limitFor more on configuration options, see Configuration options for the Office Deployment ToolAfter deployment you can verify this option is present by checking the registry - you can run the following on the cmd line. reg query HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration /v SharedComputerLicensing reg query HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Scenario\INSTALL /v SharedComputerLicensing From an AppVolumes perspective, setting the configuration file to disable updates and enable shared computer licencing would be a requirement.