Precache the local installation source for Office 2010

 

Applies to: Office 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2011-07-01

Banner stating end of support date for Office 2010 with link to more info

You can minimize the load on a network by deploying the local installation source separately, before you deploy Microsoft Office 2010. When you deploy Office 2010, Setup creates a local installation source on the user's computer — a copy of the compressed source files for the Office product that you install. After the files have been copied to the user's computer, Setup completes the installation from the local installation source.

Deploy the local installation source

Use the following procedure to deploy the local installation source before you deploy Office 2010.

To deploy the local installation source separately

  1. On the network installation point, open the Config.xml file in a text editor, such as Notepad. For information about the Config.xml file, see Config.xml file in Office 2010.

    By default, Config.xml is located in the core product folder for the Office product that you are installing. For example, if you install Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010, open the Config.xml file in the ProPlus.WW folder.

  2. Find the LIS element (<LIS>); remove the comment marks in the line by deleting the opening <!-- and closing --> tags.

  3. Set the <CACHEACTION> attribute to "CacheOnly".

    The line in Config.xml should look as shown in the following example.

    <LIS CACHEACTION="CacheOnly" />
    
  4. Save the Config.xml file.

  5. Run Setup.exe on users' computers; on the Setup command line, specify the path of the modified Config.xml file.

    You must use a fully qualified path. For example: \\server\share\Office14\setup.exe /config \\server\share\Office14\ProPlus.WW\Config.xml

    where Office14 is the root of the network installation point.

Note

If you precache the local installation source on users' computers and then later have to remove it, you can set the <CACHEACTION> attribute to "RemoveCacheOnly" and run Setup again. This setting works only if users have not yet installed Office.

Precaching lets most of the installation activity occur on the local computer instead of over the network. Precaching also lets you coordinate the upgrade to the new version. You can distribute the local installation source to groups of users over time and then schedule a concurrent installation throughout the organization without overtaxing the network.

Important

Running Setup.exe from the MSOCache as described next in this article is intended only for new installations of Office 2010. This method does not work if you have an existing 2007 Office system installation on the computer on which you are installing Office 2010. If you attempt to upgrade from the 2007 Office system to Office 2010 by installing Office 2010 from the MSOCache folder, an error similar to the following may be displayed: “The Language of this installation package is not supported by your system.”
If there is an installation of the 2007 Office system on the computer, an MSOCache folder for the 2007 Office system is present. If you precached the local installation source for Office 2010, an MSOCache folder for Office 2010 is also present on the computer. When both 2007 Office system and Office 2010 MSOCache folders are present on a computer, the Setup.exe program from the Office 2010 cache folder ({90140000-0011-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}-C) queries the MSOCache folders on the computer for all Office products that it can install. It identifies the 2007 Office system as an available product to install, and the error occurs.
If you have an existing 2007 Office system installation on the computer on which you are installing Office 2010, you can do the following to work around this issue:

  • Start the Office 2010 installation from the original network installation point (network share) that you used to precache the installation.

  • Ensure that you are not using the same Config.xml that you previously used to perform the cacheonly action. Otherwise, it repeats the cacheonly action rather than performing the installation. You can modify the Config.xml file to remove the cacheonly line, or you can use an alternate Config.xml file.

    This method does not copy additional data to the computer because the installation detects that MSOCache already exists.

To take full advantage of precaching the local installation source for new installations of Office 2010, you can use the Setup.exe file from the local cache and only pass in the optional files, the Setup customization file (.msp file), and the custom Config.xml file from a network installation source. You must use the fully qualified path of these files. If the share names contain spaces, use quotation marks around the paths as shown in the following example.

"C:\MSOCache\All Users\{10140000-0011-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}-C\setup.exe" /adminfile "\\server\share\Office 14\mychanges\db_outlookonly.msp" /config "\\server\share\Office 14\ProPlus.WW\Config.xml"

where:

/adminfile specifies the location of the .msp file.

/config specifies the location of the customized Config.xml file.

Setup handles the creation and maintenance of the local installation source automatically. The default location is \MSOCache\All Users at the root of the drive on which Office is installed. In addition to installing Office from the local installation source, Setup uses the local installation source to repair, reinstall, or update Office later. If the local installation source is corrupted or deleted, Setup uses the original source on the network to repair or re-create it. For information about the /adminfile and /config setup command-line options, see /adminfile [path] and /config [path] in Setup command-line options for Office 2010.

Note

If you set the installation location for Office to another location (for example, by entering a new value for the INSTALLLOCATION attribute in Config.xml), Setup creates the local installation source at that location.