OpenOffice & Thunderbird

Mike UK · 19 Apr 2012 at 14:53

I have been tasked with the job of installing OpenOffice and Thunderbird on about 30PC and also remove Office 2003 from them. Unfortunately the network is pretty slow so a remote install is out of the question.

Is there any way to create an unattended installer for both of these as doing it the old fashioned way will make it a boring day.

j6m · 19 Apr 2012 at 15:45

Ninite?

Dano · 19 Apr 2012 at 15:57

Use libra office instead of open.

j6m · 19 Apr 2012 at 16:07

Dano said:
Use libra office instead of open.

Good idea - assuming those in charge don't object.

opethdisciple · 19 Apr 2012 at 18:06

Open office is dead.

Libre Office is the open source version of it, it is where all the devs and developments are taking place.

Its the same thing, just the real deal, rather than the pop that is Open Office.

prescott28 · 19 Apr 2012 at 19:21

I rather thing this is gong to be a dull day but you can listen to something while you work!

I second the Libre Office thing. Libre took the Open Office code and has been developing it since. It is all open-source so shouldn't scare anyone and looks the same as Open Office.

Mike UK · 19 Apr 2012 at 21:12

I'll have to look into libreoffice although think they have made their minds up on OpenOffice. I had a look at Ninite and it insists on downloading the installation packages on every machine its placed on taking ages to download each time.

Guess its going to be a few memory sticks and do a few at once.

Azuse05 · 19 Apr 2012 at 22:09

Oracal terminated OO development pretty much, has no developers and hasn't had a proper update in almost 18 months. Te only reason anyone would have their heart set on dead software when there's a much better (free) alternative is ignorance. Educate them

prescott28 · 19 Apr 2012 at 22:32

Azuse05 said:
Oracal terminated OO development pretty much, has no developers and hasn't had a proper update in almost 18 months. Te only reason anyone would have their heart set on dead software when there's a much better (free) alternative is ignorance. Educate them

Judging by the website Open Office is now run by the Apache Foundation. presumably it is not quite dead then.

Azuse05 · 20 Apr 2012 at 00:07

They stopped commercial development a year ago, 6 months after loosing most of their key developers to the open document foundation which was set up to produce copyright free software after oracle decided to be less than fair (from the developers viewpoints). Oracle got invited, which probably added insult to injury - their own fault, threw a hissy fit claiming conflicting interests and booted board members. The biggest backer has to be google.

Openoffice got handed to apache a month later after driving away all the open scource developers and pulling their own. The only reason it still exsits is because IBM were part of the original board and want to release and apache openoffice IBM edition.

They took all the oo code that didn't have oracles new copyright issues, added their fixes and improvements to the point where the code is mostly libre now. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone recommending OO over LO. The release schedule is here and frankly, you're costing yourself a second install if you use OO now then in a year realize how comparatively inferior it is (certainly will be by then).

Also pretty much all home installer apps just check installed version against net version then download and install them for you. If you can remotely install ms products with no issue can't do the opposite? Could probably write a batch file to run the uninstaller at any rate.

Tbh, buy a fast usb3 pen drive and take a book, you're in for a long day imo

Mike UK · 20 Apr 2012 at 18:25

Thanks for the advice seems pointless installing openoffice when llibreoffice is avalilible and does the same job!

I'll go with LibreOffice Thunderbird and several USB memory sticks