Deploy Office 2003 with Group Policy

Caporegime
Joined
26 Aug 2003
Posts
37,508
Location
Leafy Cheshire
Hi Guys,

I posted this over at Experts Exchange, but typically no-one is actually an expert and as such no-one has answered my query.

Trying to push Office 2003 out to specific users through the use of Group Policy, and have been searching high and low for an answer to this to no avail.

I've got the MSI file modified by running "setup.exe /a" from the CD-ROM, and placed it into a globally accessible share. I've created a transform to weed out Access/InfoPoint/Publisher and set office up how I want it, and am at the stage of trying to assign it to the people I need to have it installed.

My problem lies with only giving office to people within the "Office 2003 Basic" Group within ADUC. I have an OU called "Software Deployment", containing another OU called "Office 2003". This "Office 2003" OU contains a User Group called "Office 2003 Users", which has 12 or so users whom are members (and need Office 2k3). Nothing ever gets installed at logon (I have the "install at logon" tickbox checked).

If I physically move users to be contained in the OU "Office 2003" then the software deploys absolutely fine (so I know the GPO is set up correctly).

Is there a way of pushing applications to Group Members?

Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Cheers.
 
Imagine it like this:

domain.com > Software Distribution Groups (OU) > Microsoft (OU) > Office 2003 (OU) - This is where the Security Group is.

domain.com > Users (OU) > Department (OU) > Standard Users (OU) - This is where the users are.

Within this "Office 2003" OU, there is a Distribution Group called "Office 2003 Basic Users", the members of which I want to install Office 2003 with a transform applied to remove access etc (transform already set up and applied).

I am using GPMC to admin GPO's, which means I cannot choose where I create the GPO, it goes in "Group Policy objects" container, and only lets me link to GPOs at OU level.
 
Well I tried having the GPO link at domain root level, and at the Office 2003 OU level. Not really wanting to put it at the Standard Users OU, as this would mean linking it 4 or 5 times for different departments, then multiple times for different levels of user (standard, supervisor, manager, etc).

I would have assumed linking at domain level, then setting "Office 2003 Basic Users" group to have "apply group policy" permissions would have done the trick, but alas no, it does nothing.
 
So like I said, having at domain root level, and filtering it out as above has been tried.

It had no effect.
 
I had nothing blocking policy inheritance, and yes, the GPO is listed for the OU.

I think I have found the problem, I had to set Computer Settings > Administrative Templates > System > Logon > Always Wait for the Network at Logon To be Enabled.
 
Cheers Katana, you've been most helpful.

Just out of interest, did you see my RIS based question yesterday? Any thoughts?
 
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