OpenOffice is configured pretty well by default, but if there are one or more settings that need to be changed, it would be a real pain to have to modify these settings individually on every PC to which you are deploying OpenOffice. If you find yourself in a situation in which some of the configuration options need to be changed for all of your users, then I recommend creating a custom Windows Installer package.
A Windows Installer package is an MSI file that you can use to deploy the application. You can create a custom MSI package by using a free utility called WinINSTALL LE 2003.
What makes this utility so perfect for this type of deployment is that it uses a procedure called diffing to build a custom installation script. Basically, the way the diffing function works is that you would load Windows onto a PC and then install the same service packs and hot fixes as are being used on your workstations. You would then take a snapshot of the machine's hard drive by using the WinINSTALL LE 2003 utility.
After taking the snapshot, you would install OpenOffice on the machine and then configure OpenOffice in exactly the way you'd like it to be configured for your users. This means doing things such as setting up data paths, possibly placing an icon on the desktop, or even configuring Proxy Server options.
Once OpenOffice is running an ideal configuration for your environment, you'd run WinINSTALL LE 2003 again and make a second snapshot. The utility would then compare the two snapshots. The MSI file that is created is basically a log of all the files and registry entries that vary between the two snapshots. At the time the MSI file is created, a folder is also created to hold all of the files associated with OpenOffice.
One word of caution: WinINSTALL LE 2003 doesn't just look for new files; it also looks for any files that have been modified between the two snapshots. For this reason, it's extremely important that the machine used to create the MSI file contain nothing but Windows and OpenOffice. It's also very important that you deploy the MSI file only to machines running the same operating system and service pack level as the machine used to create the Windows Installer file.
Ideally, you could use SMS Server to remove Microsoft Office from all of the workstations, and then deploy OpenOffice by using the Windows Installer package that you created. If you don't have SMS Server or a third-party application management utility, you can use Active Directory to assign the application to the desired users.
Assigning an application means that Windows will automatically install the application the next time a user logs in. If a user somehow manages to destroy, damage, or disable OpenOffice, Active Directory will use the MSI file to figure out what has been changed to cause the malfunction and will repair OpenOffice. As you can see, by creating an MSI package for OpenOffice, you can automatically deploy a custom OpenOffice configuration and automate the repair process should a user damage OpenOffice.
Talkback
What technical support?
Have you ever actually called Microsoft's technical support with a real-life problem?
I'll take the free support the Internet has to offer any day of the week, thank you.
So bring on OpenOffice.
Oh, and just because 5% or so of your workforce can't migrate to OpenOffice just yet that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of cost savings involved in migrating the other 95%.
Of course, you're always free to opt for the Microsoft "upgrade" way. Full scale migration project that seems to be needed every so many years if you ask me. But still, your choice.
Say, you wouldn't happen to be faced with a legal requirement to keep documents available for more then 5 years would you? If so, good luck with keeping all your previous Microsoft Office versions up and running just to stay legal.
What about the 5 year legal thing - all versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint share the same format since 1997 - that's already 7 years. And Office 97 still runs well on Windows XP - so there are no problems saving files for five years.
Yes, a Word file created in Word 2004 for the Macintosh can open flawlessly on Word 97 for Windows - how much better can you get?
It's actualy more then 5 years in most countries for various kinds of data.
Ask various large (governmental) organizations why they spend so much (tax) dollars just on keeping historical data accessable. (investigating the problems within large organizations magnifies the problems smaller organizations migth face)
Question to ask: should you allow yourself to access data with a software product that's no longer supported by its vendor? And could thus lead to various unexpected results (or the other way around, unexpected results because of the time gap between the software product used to access historical data) which you yourself may solve? How do you search in such data? How do you inventory it? How do you avoid locking yourself into a certain vendor's product range? How do you communicate (historical) data with third parties that don't use your software products? What if there are unsupported commands (like macro commands) active in the historical file? Or have external links to resources that no longer exist (or worse, have been replaced)? Etc, etc.
It's not a question of being able to open A file. The question is being able to open THE file you're looking for. While maintaining overview of possible relations with other files in the right order.
Organizations that store data in open formats (as opposed to closed formats) right from the start have less problems to deal with. And face fewer business (and legal) risks. Although that will no doubt differ from country to country and from year to year.
As such Microsoft's DRM will lead to interesting additional problems in the coming years. Just imagine loosing access to your historical data, do as Dr. Microsoft ordered. or start a mass scale migration project (there goes the elaged time saved years earlier).
Useless article. IT people who done support know better and I am sure they are having a good laugh at this article.
Obviously the author has no idea what it takes to deploy MS Office to corporate desktops. The un-informed users are left with the impression that MS tools work like magic. Far from the truth.
On the other side, the author has no clue of the many ways you can roll out OpenOffice and how to deploy a uniform profiles to all users. This article is nothing but PR stunt written by MS markting. Smart responsible IT people don't take this rubbish seriously, they find the facts for themselves. Give OpenOffice a try and see how far off this article is from the truth.
Don't forget that there are a lot of userful features in OpenOffice that doesn't exist in Microsoft Office.
E.g. export to pdf and flash, a documented xmlbased file format that makes it easy to integrate into other systems regardless if they have Microsoft origin or not. Better interoperability with enterprice level databases.
And even if you don't plan to migrate fully it is very handy to have it installed as it often opens damaged MS-Office documents that MS-Office refuses to open.
>>When you install OpenOffice, the installation program does not offer to uninstall Microsoft Office, and the installer does not attempt to configure OpenOffice based on your Microsoft Office settings.<<
Why should it? If OpenOffice tried to uninstall Microsoft Office, you'd complain about how it was trying to hijack your computer, and remove any competing software.
And what other similarly complex program tries to import settings from other competing programs? The only type I can think of are email clients and web browsers, and then, only the non-Microsoft ones.
IE doesn't import Mozilla/Netscape settings when you install it, and Outlook/OE doesn't import Eudora and Thunderbird settings when you install it. Why the heck should OpenOffice import settings from Microsoft Office?
Blah, Blah, Blah,
Personally I have used Microsoft Office Suite 2000 and I don't see a need for it compared to Open Source Office Suites. How many people actually use more than 15 percent of the functionality in MS Office Suites? Fact is how many know how to setup even a Access Database? I don't think I would miss one bit of Microsoft Outlook seeing that my habits are such that I only use a small percentage of it. Not to forget mentioning other apps are more secure then Outlook, but we won’t go there.
However Open Office meets the majority of the needs out there and the fact is if I was going to design a 4-color brochure, I definitely wouldn't use Microsoft Word, however MS Publisher is ok and PageMaker is better!
I think what I get tired of, is the complaining about products when in actuality if you look at what the needs are. I think more people are willing to try something that is going to accomplish the same thing that can save them money, time, energy and stimulate the mind.
On another note, K office in KDE is just as comparable to MS Office. K-Word is excellent and appears to be even easier than MS Word that I have used for a few years. But over the past three years I haven’t seen a single article written about K-office in KDE compared to MS Office.
In summary most people wouldn’t even miss MS Office if they were in another environment and the change might even stimulate more productivity that encourages learning then just grow in complacency and laziness.
MDW
I've been using OpenOffice M3*-M41 at work for the last three months. These are the developer downloads (before alpha). I have had no problems. Everyone but me uses MS office 2000 and xp.
This article was written by a person who does not use OpenOffice.
Granted, OpenOffice may or may not have some problems when importing MSOffice documents; but that doesn't mean it has less features! For example, while it doesn't execute VBA macros, it has it's own comparable macro language. It's obvious that every migration from a product that saves it's file in an undocumented proprietary format may cause trouble on the way. Anyway, this is the way to escape from the lock-in these undocumented proprietary formats cause. The sooner you migrate, the better.
Give me a break. Around here, 'technical support' involves questions like 'what's the name of that file I made last week' and 'where did I save my report' Good luck getting on the phone to Microsoft (or any supplier) for an answer to that one.
OO installs perfectly and runs well. On Win 98 machines I've seen crashes, but they're always related to an over-use of resources, and I get around that by putting the Resource Meter in the task bar. I tell people - if it's yellow, close some apps. If it's red, save your stuff and reboot. I should point out that it's not down to OO or Mozilla or whatever, just a general resources problem which also occurs with IE, Outlook, Office, etc.
As for real tech support, in a major company with a huge IT dept there's probably more mileage in sifting through the source code than there is sitting on the phone listening to elevator music. Hell, if they do fix a glitch they can even submit the patch.
OpenOffice.org support?
If you go to http://www.openoffice.org/
and click on the "Support" link, you will get
free and paid support resources.
In addition, has the author tried to use the "support" system in MSOffice?
It's good to do better research when venturing in writing articles.
Microsoft's support is expensive and seriously lacking in my experience. I could work as a support engineer right away. First time you get a call you answer "Did you reboot", second time they call you answer "You have to reinstall.", the third time they call you say: "It's a know problem, wait for the next SP/upgrade."
Sure, converting old documents can be a pain, but only if some fancy stuff has been used. Sorry, but do you consider fiddling around with WordArt a real business activity? Another option is not to convert at all, but use a viewer for old documents. Usually, they are not modified at all after a certain period.
What I find most disturbing is applications built using these products. Those systems (in my experience) are hardly reliable and should not be used for critical business processes. A business which really relies on those things has a serious problem. Although some scripting may be handy, large applications should not be built on this platform.
Conclusion, support is seriously overrated and can be supplied by the commercial pendant of OOo, StarOffice. Conversion is not always neccesary, more often than not painless and if it is a big problem, it was a big problem in the first place. Don't put off people by pretending there are serious theoretical problems where in practice there are only a few.
why should OpenOffice uninstall MSOfiice? can you give one good argument for that? Or it would be normal to you if you install a game to uninstall every other game on your computer?
OpenOffice's number one feature for me is the open file formats (sxw, sxc, sxi, sxd). Thanks to these XML-based open formats, I can garantee I will be able to use my documents in year 2060. No vendor lock-in. No lost information. No binary format.
When i was using MSOffice and its closed, proprietary file format, the information I was producing wasn't really mine since I was dependent to Microsoft good will just to be able to read them again.
Thanks to its openness OOo file format can be implemented in any software, for example AbiWord and KOffice can import and export it.
Microsoft could too...
Tip : rename a .sxw file to .zip, unzip it, and you have access to the content to your document with a text editor !
You were incorrect when you said there is no support for Open Office. Sun Microsystems offers free level one support for both Open Office and Star Office. I have personally used it and solved my paticular problem. Call 800-574-3572
Ms should be paying money for this type of bias comment. Shame. Just think of money without social responsibility.
My MS Office 2000 on Win 98 often freezes or is unable to read documents that it created. The solution is to edit the file in Star Office or Open Office.
When I call for support the answer is reboot, reinstall and "what was teh credit card number agtain?" MS support is totally useless. MS software is so complex and intertwined how can anyone thoroughly understand it let alone successfully fix most problems ?
Nuff said!
Basically what this "journalist" is saying is:
- stay with Microsoft, pay the hefty fees
- because you're so dumb, user!
Really this kind of *journalism* is no journalism at all.
"Better don't buy that more -economic car, because if you switch you'll have to get adjusted to that new car"
"Better don't go to the one-time pain of having your rotting and smelling tooth fixed by the dentist - because it will hurt; no, better let it rot that's better for you".
C'moooon ....
p.s. This kind of journalism fits nicely in the "Get the FUD campagin". It's so sad if you have to sell out like this...
An absolute joke of an article, this 'journalist' obviously has little to no implementation skills, ROI modelling skills, and even more importantly, un-biased journalism skills.
Wow, never before have i seen such a bias argument.
In response to the journalists comments of incompatibility issues i must point out that you get what you pay for. In this case you pay nothing but get everything with a very few minor issues. How dare the journalist complain.
The costs of implimenting MS Office on every workstation for a business would be enormous. This is true for many corporations around the world. The possibility of moving to OO would cut this expendeture entirely.
If the journalist is really that worried about incompatibility issues may i reccomend businesses changing fully over to OO with the exception of one workstation in case these monster conversion issues do happen. Then you are still saving stacks of money without the threat of the satanic business bankrupting incompatibility issues.
Microsoft OneNote doesn't come bundled with any version of Office, so why does it matter that there isn't a comparable OpenOffice product? It's only branding.
In principle OO is great, but it's just those little keyboard shortcuts that keep reminding one - it's different!
Anybody who saves their documents in a closed proprietry format will have huge problems if they try to change to a cheaper alternative. It's not the fault of Open Office!
This article is obviously written by an idiot with very little technical knowledge.
It's a year later and OpenOffice 2.0 beta has an answer to your No Access complaint. What would you say now? I am looking at OpenOffice, but I am not sure yet. Do you happen to know if there are any major issues/conflicts when running both MS Office and OpenOffice together? Thanks