OFFICE 2019

[Dasboot5]

Is it impossible to add Office 2019 (not 365) updates to WSUS due to the changes in how office 2019 installs C2r and updating in the account window rather than from windows update servers?
I see the latest version still tanks out at 2016....

[Dalai]

WSUS Offline hasn't been supporting Click2Run Office, and will probably never be able to so. Why? Because WSUS Offline relies on a Windows update catalog provided by MS. This catalog doesn't contain any updates related to C2R since the latter uses different paths to provide updates (streaming).

What you can do, is use the Office Deployment Tool (ODT), in conjunction with an XML file that makes sense for your scenario/environment. Documentation for the ODT and its options.

Example for such an XML file, which is what we use at work:

Code: Select all

<Configuration>
    <Add OfficeClientEdition="32" SourcePath="\\server\share\HomeBusiness" Channel="Broad">
        <Product ID="HomeBusinessRetail">
            <Language ID="de-DE" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="InfoPath" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="Lync" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="OneNote" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="Outlook" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="Publisher" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="SharePointDesigner" />
        </Product>
    </Add>
</Configuration>


You should change the settings to your needs, including language, components, update channel and paths. The ExcludeApp lines don't do anything for downloading. Run the ODT in download mode every month, and then your clients can load the "updates" from that share.

For Office installation we use this:

Code: Select all

<Configuration>
    <Add OfficeClientEdition="32" SourcePath="\\server\share\\HomeBusiness" DownloadPath="\\server\share\HomeBusiness" AllowCdnFallback="FALSE" Channel="Broad">
        <Product ID="HomeBusinessRetail">
            <Language ID="de-DE" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="PowerPoint" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="InfoPath" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="Lync" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="OneNote" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="Outlook" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="Publisher" />
            <ExcludeApp ID="SharePointDesigner" />
        </Product>
    </Add>

    <Updates Enabled="FALSE" UpdatePath="\\server\share\\HomeBusiness" Channel="Broad" />

    <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />
    <Logging Level="Standard" Path="%temp%" />
    <Property Name="PinIconsToTaskbar" Value="FALSE" />
    <Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="0" />
    <Property Name="SCLCacheOverride" Value="0" />
    <Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="0" />
    <Property Name="FORCEAPPSHUTDOWN" Value="FALSE" />

    <AppSettings>
        <Setup Name="Company" Value="Company name" />
    </AppSettings>
</Configuration>


Note that there is no possibility to install Office updates quickly - at least I haven't been able to find any so far. The setup made via ODT takes about 4 minutes with only Excel and Word enabled, almost regardless of whether or not Office is already installed. It seems to do a full installation, so that a newer release is installed in the end.

Important: Do not specify a DownloadPath when using the ODT to download Office, because it specifies the download source (which is not your server share)! In other words, you need separate XML files for download and installation.

Regards
Dalai