Office 365 as a published application

[MattSyme]

Hi Everyone,

I am having difficulties getting office 365 to activate successfully as a published application. It is installed with the shared license activation and does work fine in our app packages attached to VMs.

With the published application server I have installed it directly onto the server with a few GP through DEM in place mentioned here

https://www.stephenwagner.com/2021/05/31/configure-office-365-remote-desktop-services-environment/

I am have also read over this helpful guide

https://techzone.vmware.com/resource/best-practices-delivering-microsoft-office-365-vmware-horizon-7...

However on first launch it will prompt with a sign in window and if I try to sign in, once I click enter the sign in box disappears and the office application (word or excel) just freezes. I cant close it as I get the message "close the dialog box before trying to exit the application" but there is no dialog box to close. The only way I can close the program is to end the session in Horizon admin console.

If I log directly onto the same published application server through vcenter or rdp and run any office application it logs me in and activates seamlessly, no user input required...

Just wondered if anyone had something similar happen or understands the mechanics around the seamless sign into office with published applications?

Our environment

Horizon 7.13

windows server 2019

office 365 installed with shared license activation and users with an e5 license

[StephenWagner7]

Hey @MattSyme 

You should have opened a chat on the site, I would have been happy to help you out!

I have a new tutorial here, check it out: https://www.stephenwagner.com/2021/08/06/microsoft-office-365-vdi/ 

Hope it helps.

[WPinegar2011101]

To prevent Office 365 apps from locking up when run as a published app you will need to setup a GPO to disable hardware graphics acceleration. It's a user setting in Office 2016->Miscellaneous->Do not Use Hardware Graphics Acceleration. Set this to Enabled. I'm still working through an issue with activations always failing but at least this resolves issues with the Office apps locking up when starting as a published app.

[WPinegar2011101]

We were able to resolve the Office 365 activation issues when running Office 365 as a published app on Server 2019. From the Citrix support forums: https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/414496-m365-apps-for-business-on-server-2019-vda-asks-users-for... 

The answer:

This is a known issue on Server 2019.

Please read the following:
https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/403721-office-365-pro-plus-shared-activation-password-screen-no...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/troubleshoot/authentication/automatic-authentication-fail...

Add the following PowerShell code to a user login script and it should fix your issue.

If (-not (Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.AAD.BrokerPlugin)) { Add-AppxPackage -Register "$env:windir\SystemApps\Microsoft.AAD.BrokerPlugin_cw5n1h2txyewy\Appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode -ForceApplicationShutdown } Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.AAD.BrokerPlugin

Adding this to the logon script resolved the issue. Both of these fixes should be portable to VMware Horizon.

[MattSyme]

Interesting. 

We ended up using a device based license which worked for us but its not perfect, server rebuilds mean office will be unlicensed until it syncs the license to our MS overlords which is anywhere from a few minutes to an hour.

Will try out your recommendation and see how it goes, just curious does it allow sharepoint online and onedrive to appear as connected services in office? 

We have a recent issue thats popped up in the last few days where sharepoint online users wish to open up files in the native office applications all within a published application setting. The only piece that doesn't work is opening the file in the native app, as sharepoint isn't connected it will prompt for a username and password in the office application but wont actually open up the file after inputting your credentials. 

Similar to the issue this post is about, it all works fine on VMs and logging in direct to the server, but within a published application i am guessing office is looking for credentials from windows that aren't there.