How to handle MS Office applications?

[VArjan]

I am trying to get some MS Office applications to work with App Volumes.

I have got:

• Horizon View 6.0.1
• App Volumes 2.9

My (ideal) goal is to have some AppStacks:

• MS Office 2010 Standard
• MS Visio 2010
• MS Project 2010
• MS Office 2013 Standard
• MS Visio 2013
• MS Project 2013

All are 32 bits versions.

I have tested this, and all works fine as long as you have one AppStack. All applications can be opened and used no activation is needed.

If I want to combine MS office 2013 and Project 2013 to a single user only one of the 2 works. The other one starts with an activation screen which is not working fine. After the next logon the activation starts all over again.

So I tried to create a new AppStack with MS Office 2013 and Project 2013 in one AppStack.

I created an update AppStack of the one with Office and installed Project in there as well.

So the user on has one AppStack with all applications, but the problem remains the same. Even when I run the cscript ospp.vbs /act command (successfully) (the App Volume 2.9 documentation does not say this is required as it did in the older versions).

I just always get the activation issue's when I try to have 2 Office applications for one user.

Any suggestions how to deal with this problem?

[Gaurav_Baghla]

VMware App Volumes supports KMS based licensing for Office

1. Provision all appropriate Office applications into a fresh AppStack.

2. Do not open any Microsoft Office applications during the provisioning process.

9

VMware App Volumes User's Guide

VMware, Inc. 40

3. Launch a Command prompt as Administrator. Go to the location of the version of office

for office 2010. change directory to c:\Program files\Microsoft

office\Office 14 for Office 2013 goto c:\Program files\Microsoft

office\Office 15. Output of the command must be that the setting has been made

successfully.

For Office 2010: run command cscript ospp.vbs

/sethst:kmsserver.yourKMSserver.com

For Office 2013: run command cscript ospp.vbs

/sethst:kmsserver.yourKMSserver.com

4. Run command cscript ospp.vbs /act.

Note: Output of the command must be that Office is activated successfully.

Refer to Page#39-40 https://www.vmware.com/pdf/app-volumes-27-users-guide.pdf

Regards

Gaurav Baghla

[VArjan]

Thanks for you response.

These instructions are in the 2.7 documentation, but they are left out in the 2.9 documentation.

But I have followed the instructions, new AppStack, installed Office and Project, and did the activation with success.

The result remains the same. Office works fine. But as soon as you open Project an activation screen pops up.

Not sure what my options are...

[HenryLe0311]

They are not going to work properly in different app stacks.

Office uses a single file for licensing across ALL those products.

So you can put base Office in the gold image and have Project, lets say, in an app stack. Then when you assign project to a VM (and the project app stack was created with that gold image that had office in it) it would work.

But in the example above if you assigned 2 app stacks (say project and visio) only one would work.

Essentially You have to create an appstack for each possible configuration.

So In my case it would have been the following app stacks

Office

Office+Visio

Office+ Project

Office +visio + Project

and so on.

App Volumes doesnt have the concept of a prerequisite stack where when you create a new stack you would be able to see, say Office. Unidesk does that and it would be a big feature if AppVol had something like it

hint hint VMWARE!

[VArjan]

I have tried to put MS Office and Project in one new AppStack. This does not seem te be working.

I want to prevent to put MS Office in the GI. It also become difficult to have Office 2010 and 2013. I would like to prevent to have more then 1 GI.

[HenryLe0311]

"not working" is a pretty broad statement.  licensing errors? Dont forget you can also open a ticket with support for specific errors.

As far as licensing and activation and what not. The only solution to keep from having office in the gold image is what I mentioned before. Create an appstack for each potential configuration and follow the steps in the app vol documentation. So you wind up with the following - and this is what I have but only for office 2010

Office 2010

Office 2010 +Visio

Office 2010 +Project

Office 2010 +visio +project

Office 2013

Office 2013 +Visio

Office 2013 +Project

Office 2013 +visio +project

4 total app stacks for each office version. Mine is a little worse since I also have some visual studio floating around in a couple of stacks.

[ncarpenter]

Hi VArjan,

We had this issue on 2.5. No Matter what I did, I also got an activation request/failure, unless it was one of those times that I didn't. It was confusing and annoying to say the least.After a lot of debugging and a support call or two to VMware, we were able to solve the issue of having independent app stacks for Visio and Project. What you have to do is this, take your gold master for the VDI pool you are attempting to create the Office app stack for and use that as your capture machine.You have to have the View agent uninstalled and Office installed in your base image as well. You could also use a full clone of your gold master, I think this also works from memory. We have now got Visio and Project installed to individual app stacks and working without asking for activation each and every time. The reason you have to use the gold master or a clone of it has to do with the way KMS licensing works under Winodws with these Office products.

Sorry for the rambling response, I am just a little short of time, If you would like any more info, just PM me.

Cheers,

Nick

[VArjan]

I downloaded the Office ISO fresh from MS. I can now install MS Office and Project and/or Visio in the same AppStack and its working.

The activation screen does not show up anymore. So far so good!

But I have found a new problem...

As soon as I install the Office Proofing Tools in the same AppStack (new AppStack or added to a existing one) I get a some strange results.

Sometimes after the logon it can take up to 3 mins of longer when Office apps are loaded.

Sometimes I see the AppVolume disk in my computer (should be hidden)

Sometimes I see nothing and the Office apps are not loading at all.

In all cases I see in the AppStack mounted to the VM in the AppVol manager. I can also see the VMDK added to the SM in vSphere client.

Any suggestions?

[VArjan · Accepted solution]

I was installing the Multi language version of the MS Office proofing tools. Which was not working.

I now downloaded the package with only one language, this seems to be working.

[Jason_Marshall]

‌We know... Working on it 

[Jason_Marshall]

‌Because of the way Office licensing works there can only be a single license file. It merges together for each office app that is installed. This means then that you can only have one office appstack attached at a time. It can be any combination of office apps, but only one. This is because whatever the last file is that is attached, that's the one that "wins".

Simplest solution tends to be Office in the base os with ancillary office apps like project, Visio etc in single and grouped appstacks Depending on user combination needs. Does not have to be this config but in complicated environments it tends to work the smoothest.

And us we are planning to do something about this..

[Ray_handels]

Isn't it possible to use a writable volume and force an update on that one? In this case you would have the license file on the writable volume that would take precedence over all other files in appstacks.

Or will it eventually just corrupt the licensing?

[Jason_Marshall]

No because its still just a single license file. So whether it is in an AppStack or Writable still only can have one.. For now..