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I have an image of Windows 7 with Office 2010 installed that I'm trying to push out to my domain users but when they open Office for the first time, it asks them for a username and password for an administrator account.

I know that it's not critical and they can get to the program without imputing the username/password but my users don't.

To eliminate the support calls I know that I'm going to get, is there a way to bypass this? Even completely eliminate the 'first run' BS that Office has?

EEAA
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blsub6
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  • Actually, what I was talking about is the "Welcome to Office 2010" window. I want my domain users to never see that. – blsub6 Dec 03 '10 at 00:29

2 Answers2

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The easiest thing to do is run the ospp.vbs script and activate Office before the users login. That can be you manually doing it, or part of the imaging process, or however you want to accomplish it (but it has to be done after imaging, and after the computer can access the Internet).

If you have a volume key, you can setup a KMS to do it automatically without any intervention on your part; see that same link.

Chris S
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  • Setting up KMS is WAY easier than everything on Microsoft's website leads you to believe. You literally just add it as a Role on your server, confirm that it updated DNS properly, and then never think about it again. (Or else I'm using it wrong... But I don't think thats true.) – minamhere Dec 02 '10 at 03:48
  • @minamhere, setting up a KMS might be easier, but has a very high entry requirement: the *volume key*. Unless your a large corporation or other institution, most people don't have them. – Chris S Dec 02 '10 at 04:01
  • Very true. I did it for our current server migration, so I have 10 servers that are being moved. I quickly met the minimum 5 server activation requirement. I believe even with Windows/Office, KMS only requires 25 activations to work, right? This is right at the border between where I'd consider imaging worthwhile. If you have few than 25 computers, unless you are replacing all of them at once, you probably have several different models, so you might not be imaging. – minamhere Dec 02 '10 at 04:10
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    Also, you can get a volume key for Windows/Office for roughly the same price as retail as long as you buy more than 5 licenses at a time. The Open Value program is easy to understand and easy to buy. It gives you a volume/KMS key, and you can easily add future purchases under the same agreement without changing keys. So depending on just how small the environment is, even volume licensing can be reached easily. – minamhere Dec 02 '10 at 04:14
  • And one last thing. With KMS, you do need a server for it to run on. It doesn't need its own server, but it does have to live somewhere. So that could be a pretty large barrier if your environment doesn't easily let you install the KMS role somewhere. – minamhere Dec 02 '10 at 04:19
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Thank you Chris S and minamhere for your responses but I must not have been clear on what I was trying to accomplish. I was actually looking to suppress the welcome screen that asks users about the update settings and such. I found that if a user clicks the biggest button there (use recommended settings) it asks them for an admin username and password.

My solution was the Office 2010 ADM template.

Download, add it to your GPO and enable the "Suppress recommended settings dialog" policy and it works like a charm :)

blsub6
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