Microsoft has announced the opportunity to deploy Office 365 on a terminal server. This requires the correct Office365 plan and a feature called shared computer activation. For more information about the feature, read the attached blog article http://blogs.technet.com/b/uspartner_ts2team/archive/2014/09/03/office-365-shared-computer-activation.aspx
Supported Office365 Plans:
- Office 365 ProPlus
- Office 365 Enterprise E3
- Office 365 Enterprise E4
- Project for Office 365
- Visio Pro for Office 365
- Project Online with Project for Office 365
Installation
Here is a small guide for installing and activating Office365.
- Download the Office Deployment tool for click-to-run here – Download
- Start and extract the tool on your terminal server.
- Edit the existing configuration.XML file: (the attached is just a suggestion and still needs to be extended to the file server)
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<Configuration> <Add SourcePath="\\Server\Share" OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="SemiAnnual" /> <Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail"> <Language ID="MatchInstalled" /> <Language ID="MatchOS" Fallback="en-us" /> </Product> </Add> <Updates Enabled="TRUE" UpdatePath="\ServerShare" Channel="SemiAnnual" /> <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" /> <Logging Level="Standard" Path="%temp%" /> </Configuration> |
Value
SourcePath=”\\Server\Share”
Description
Office is downloaded to “\\server\share” and deployed to that location by using the installation files.
OfficeClientEdition=”64″
Download and install the 64-bit edition of Office.
Channel=”SemiAnnual”
Office is installed over the half-yearly channel.
Allowed values:
“BetaChannel”
“CurrentPreview”
“Current”
“MonthlyEnterprise”
“SemiAnnualPreview”
“SemiAnnual”
Product ID=”O365ProPlusRetail”
Download and install Office 365 ProPlus.
Language ID=”MatchInstalled”
Language ID=”MatchOS” Fallback=”en-us”
Downloads the already installed language version and the language version that corresponds to the operating system, with fallback to the English language pack.
Updates Enabled=”TRUE”
Office is looking for updates.
UpdatePath=”\\Server\Share”
Office is looking for updates under “\\server\share” on your network.
Channel=”SemiAnnual”
Office performs updates through the half-yearly channel.
Display Level=”None” AcceptEULA=”TRUE”
No user interface is displayed when you install Office.
Logging Level=”Standard” Path=”%temp%”
Log files are stored in the %temp% folder.
- Using an administrative command prompt and run the following command in the previously selected path to download the required files.
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Setup.exe /download configuration.xml |
- Using an administrative command prompt and run the following command to install the previously configured programs.
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Setup.exe /configure configuration.xml |
- When the installation are finished, the selected office suite is ready for the users on the server
- The first time you start an Office application, the required Office365 access data is queried and the office is activated after the entry.
Uninstallation
To uninstall Office365 via the OfficeDeployment Toolkit use the following XML file which I have saved as remove.xml
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<Configuration> <Remove All="TRUE"/> <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE"/> <Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="0"/> <Property Name="FORCEAPPSHUTDOWN" Value="TRUE"/> <Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="0"/> <Property Name="PinIconsToTaskbar" Value="FALSE"/> </Configuration> |
This will delete all Office365 versions that were previously installed using the toolkit.
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Setup.exe /configure remove.xml |
Update
To enable this farm-wide, you can also set the GPO. To do this, the ADMX file for Microsoft Office 2016 (office2016.admx) must be added. The shared computer activation can then be activated via the following machine path.
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Administrative Templates (computers)/Microsoft Office 2016 (machine)/Licensing settings/use shared computer activation |
In the registry you can check this in the following path (enabled value = 1 / Disabled value = 0)
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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\policies\microsoft\office\16.0\common\licensing Or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration sharedcomputerlicensing = REG_DWORD (1) |