Office won't uninstall old versions via GPO push

  • Thread starter Thread starter BoomStick
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BoomStick

I have administrative installations of both Office XP and Office 2003.

I have run the custom installation wizard and configured the .MST to
uninstall all previous versions of office.

The problem that I'm having is that the older versions of office do NOT get
uninstalled unless they themselves were installed via GPO.

For instance, I have a machine with office 2000 on it that was installed
through an administrative point, but not through GPO. If I run a GPO to
push out Office 2003, then that copy of office will just copy to the machine
along side Office 2000. On a test machine, if I install my Office 2000
through my software publishing GPO, and THEN install Office 2003 it will
remove office 2000 before it installs 2003.

Here is another strange twist...

I can run the transform command line (setup.exe
TRANSFORMS="\\server\office2k3$\2003.MST" /qb-) the Office 2003 will remove
the Office 2000 NO MATTER HOW it was originally installed.

I'm really stumped on this one! I have tried it published, advanced
published, and assigned and it seems to be doing the same thing!

I have also gone in and changed the "always install with elevated
privileges" to enabled.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Jared
 
What about this approach ?,

Force the uninstall of the old package through a startup script, and let the
new 2003 package install afterwards through GPO

Dim oShell

Set oShell=createobject("wscript.shell")

oShell.run "msiexec /x <Path to your setup.msi on installation point>"


Have not tested but I believe this should solve your problem.

Let me know if you need any further info on writing a script.

Regards

Niclas Lindblom
 
Did you use the Option with in the Custom Installation wizard to remove
older versions of Office Programs? there is an option for that.

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Regards,

Christoffer Andersson
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Yes... I did set that option in the Custom Installation Wizard.

Like I said... the EXACT same transform file that I am using in the GPO will
uninstall the older version of office if I run the command line:

setup.exe TRANSFORMS="\\server\office2k3$\2003.MST" /qb-

It just won't do what it is supposed to do if I am trying to push the
application through GPO.

Thanks,

Jared
 
I have thought about doing that through either the startup script of the
login script. I just thought that this would be cleaner and easier to
organize.

Another problem that I would probably have with that is that not all of my
office2k installs were installed from the same admin share, so I would
probably have to run the msi command to update office and make sure that
it's groovy with the .MSI that I have on the server and THEN uninstall it.
That would take WAY too long....

Thanks for the suggestion... I'm willing to hear any others!

Jared
 
Yes... the Office XP GPO does exist, but at the moment it's just being
published.

If I go and install the published office xp, then the 2003 gpo will
uninstall the XP without a problem. It's only if XP was installed manually
(which 99% of them were) that the GPO does not uninstall the older version.

Jared
 
It could have been ANYBODY. All our users have local admins rights, and it
could have even been done on a ghost image.
 
Having a similar problem myself (though xp and 2000). Did you suss out how
to do it? the GPO just refuses to install Office XP over an Office 2000
install if installed manually... Will work fine if its a new pc with no
office installs, get no event log errors or anything.

help!
 
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