[Release] Office Compatibility Pack for English (ENU) and Fr

[TwoJ]

[Information]

- This addon is the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, used for adding the Office 2007, and Office 2010 formats (docx, xlsx, etc) compatibility to Office XP and 2003


[Integration of msi package]

- The download consists of a 7-zip package which contains the following two files; O12Conv.msi & O12Conv.reg, it is necessary that you unzip the package to extract the two files. The O12Conv.msi can be used with the office integrator on the 'Config 2' tab in 'Chained Install' section so that after the installation of Office XP or 2003 it will install the OCP. It is only necessary to add the O12Conv.msi file in the chained installed section, the O12Conv.reg is only necessary if you are using other forms of deployment. You may need to change the switch you use to install the msi chained package (Full, Basic, etc) in order to get a silent install, I suggest leaving it on the default, Full, and modify only if you find you are not getting a silent install.


[color="Red"]2014-05-06[/color]


[color="Red"][Downloads][/color]

Office Compatibility Pack for English (ENU);

O12Conv_en-us_140506.7z - Download Site 1 (Dropbox)

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[[color="Blue"]Information FRENCH - FRANCAIS (FRA)[/color]]

- Due to time restrictions and other reasons I am discontinuing the French Compatibility pack.

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[Integration of OCP from Microsoft]

Microsoft released an updated Office Compatibility Pack that included all updates to Jan 06, 2010. There are now updates which need to be applied to this updated OCP which you can download the updated package above, however there are perhaps people who just want to install the OCP from Microsoft, this download which is an exe file is available here;
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en

If you try to integrate this Compatibility Pack by just adding the file you will find that after the office installation you will be presented with a window to do the Compatibility Pack installation. If you want to do a silent install you can add the following command, by clicking the 'Cmd Line' and enter "/q /norestart" (minus the quotes) in order to get a complete silent install. I've attached a screenshot to demonstrate




[Other Deployment Methods]

In my deployment i try to use group policy installs as much as possible, I know if you are doing one machine you can load the Office files and the integrated chained install for the compatibility pack onto a CD or USB key and run it that way. Also if you have a small network you can put the files on a network share and run the setup.exe for each computer.
However if you try to use group policy to deploy software you know that you need installation file in msi format, which is fine for Office installation, and equally for the installation of the compatibility pack, since it is turned into an msi, however you will probably find that the updates that are integrated and installed on the target system are not registered and thus will appear as needed updates, maybe this is not a big deal for you.
Some thoughts if you want to try to get it all done in one shot, i am a big fan of group policy preferences which is a newer feature in group policy, it allows you to add registry entries into target computers, hense you can add the update registry settings that way, alternatively you can script a startup script to launch the reg file to integrate into the target systems, also you might be able to apply the registry settings remotely, or finally just pass by all the systems to integrate the registry file.

Update [2010-01-15]
Since Microsoft has now released an updated Compatibility Pack file (FileFormatConverters.exe) you should be able to use 7-zip to extract the files, including the msi, to be able to have a msi package that can be deployed by group policy without the issues of adding the registry entries for the updates. You could either use an msi editor like Orca to create an mst (msi transforms file) to make any modifications you want on the orginal installation package, or you could also use the Office Compatibility Pack Administrative Template ;
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=75BF0831-2F4D-48CE-A0B3-0D6586F9039B&displaylang=en
Which will allow you to make a group policy to make modifications.
There difference between these methods is just that the prior makes the changes on the initial installation vs the group policy which makes the changes only when applied to the particular machine.
Each deployment scenario is different so which way is best is dependent on the scenario, all this is here to do is tell you what some of the choices are.


Hope this helps some people

[TwoJ]

Addons validated till 20091006

No additional updates required

[john3voltas]

Thanks man.
Really helpful.
Cheers

[TwoJ]

Updated to 2009-10-16

Thanks very much

[TwoJ]

Updated to 2009-11-11

[BOTUS]

Thanks for making this pack TwoJ,

as an integration with the OI or standalone to existing install both worked

I do see one issue, but this may be one for Benner's and OI rather than your pack.


If I slip all the updates and the compatibility pack to a disc. When I use it to load office... when updates are later installed to running system I get ms hotfix / patches to office install OK, but it refuses to take compatibility updates.

Thinking as I write, my main system refuses in this way (office installed from OI build Dec last year) and was before your compatibility pack existed. So need to check with Benners.

More info....

Last weekend, I removed a compatibility pack SP1 (on another running system), before doing anything else. Then ran your 2009-10-16 MSI got a pop up to say completed and then ran reg file

Now I see they brought out KB973704. Tried to run its installer but this refused giving a message around can't install the setup files where previously modified. (as above, this is the issue I also get on my main system).

So this weekend, I removed that compatibility pack you made, using normal uninstall method, which went OK. Then ran 2009-11-11 from its MSI. But I never got a pop up to say it installed. After a few mins the harddrive had loads of activity for 10 minutes or more, this stopped and in the end I thought oh well run reg file. No pop ups to say if it went OK. I then opened office without any issues, opened a new excel file and saved and reopened as 2007.

When I looked today, it shows that not just the compatibility pack was installed yesterday but also now the whole Office 2003 app ??? Which is somewhat incorrect, but it was running vista, so I guess anythings possible

[TwoJ]

hi BOTUS

Seems you've touched on a few things here so i'll see if i can get them;

generally if an update is not getting applied, you should look at the event viewer in the applications section, it should give the specific reason why the update failed. You take the event id then start googling and spend 1-2 hours trying to find others that had the same problems and seeing what their solution was, if you're lucky.

I wish i knew more what was going on with the integration, personally i check which updates are needed, throw them into the black box of the OI and presto out comes the msi and reg files. Benners is certainly the wizard of the OI and could tell you more about the inner workings.

What may be an issue is that with Office 2007 when you install it, it creates an MSOCache (i think thats what its called - something similar anyways), this is a local installation cache location, on XP and 2003 you needed to use a tool LIST (Local Installation Source Tool). These Office caches (aka local installation cache) are used in case there is a problem with office or you want to do a reconfiguration of office, it is essentially a local copy of the source DVD. Now because the compatibility pack is based on the office 2007 code, it is perhaps possible that with the normal installer, it will install something in the MSOCache, that is needed by updates, and perhaps also possible is that when installing the pack from my release, ie from the OI, it is not installing in the MSOCache? This is just a speculation, as i mentioned to really diagnose the issue you need to find out what specifically the error is and what is actually preventing the installation.

The issue of installing the reg file is not necessary, if you are launching it from the msi, the msi will autoimport the registry file into the registry during its installation.

The issue of the pop is based upon the installation switch used when installing the msi, if you do a search for msiexec installation switchs, you will find q, qb, qb-, qn, qn-, etc, each one of these offers different types of installation. Generally i prefer a completly silent installation, generally the qn switch. however the default switch if none is supplied (ie just double-clicking the msi) is qb i believe which should at least throw up a windows at the end saying installation complete or similar. if you want you can download one of the viewers updates i did and inside you will find a batch file, and with some modification you can use it to launch the Comp Pack with a different switch. If you just want to verifiy if its installed its just a question of going to the add/remove programs (XP) to see if its installed.

As for installing the Office 2003, thats not possible, the comp pack doesn't have any part of office 2003. the comp pack obviously requires that an office version 2k?, XP, 2003, or viewer be installed before being able to use the comp pack, but it will not install it.

[BOTUS]

I am I going mad.... I posted earlier came back to check and it vanished ???? but the link I had shows it exits


wow spooky reposted and now it shows up !!!! weird BB.

TwoJ, thanks for your info. The very last comment on your post not sure if you understood my very last last point in orig post. I was not saying 2003 got installed because some link to the compatability pack. Just that as expected the compatibility pack shows 14 nov when I installed but the office 2003 app thats been on there for montha and I was adding the comp pack too, NOW shows installed 14 nov

[TwoJ]

Same here, for the last few weeks, siginet's forum has seem to be caching on my computer (computers?), i have to force a refresh to get it to show any new updates. Not sure if siginet's aware of this - only seems this forum

- Ah got you for office, i don't find it too strange, the CP probably installs something into the office 2003 install and so the install date is updated to the latest date. I think the 'installed date' takes the date that any part was installed and not the earliest date it was installed, ie in Office you can add Access at a later date so the date you added that becomes the 'installed date' of all Office. Sometime wrapping your head around microsoft terminology will give you nothing but headaches, according to MS a 'printer' is the software on the computer which then sends it to the 'Print device', of course the last time some told me their 'print device' was out of paper was a long time ago :-)

[TwoJ]

Addons validated till 20091215

No additional updates required