Thinapp Mail Merge - Office 2010 Activation Issue

[Steve661]

Hi All,

I am new to this community,so forgive me if I have not followed normal protocol with this discussion.

Basically I have Thinapped a piece of software called Civica App. The software itself runs fine until I try to use mail merge with MS Word 2010. Our Office 2010 is Pro Plus, using KMS activation and is installed into the base image. The Office 2010 suite of products show activated when you launch them manually in the VDI environment, so I know KMS is working ok.

When we run the mail merge from the Civica App Thinapp it launches Word 2010, merges data to the Word template and then launches Office 2010 setup. Setup fails and then we get the infamous “Microsoft Office cannot verify the license for this application. A repair attempt failed or was cancelled by the user. The Application will now shut down" message.

Isolation mode was only changed from full to merged on the %appdata% folder/sub folder and that allowed the software to write to the user’s roaming/persona profile when creating new mail merge template files (as this is where the Civica App software writes this file). MS Word 2010 has macros installed for the mail merge and these work fine.

I have applied 2 of the fixes stated in VMWare KB1022287. I realise this article talks of when Office 2010 Thinapped itself, but the symptoms are the same. I have placed this code into config.xml and re-installed Office 2010 into the base image, no luck there:

<Setting Value="kmsserver.domain.com" />
<Setting Value="1" />

I have also copied and pasted the “Office2010-Osppsvc-Keys.txt” registry entries into the top of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.txt file of the Civic App project files and re-build the App.

There has been a suggestion of placing the software in the base image, but I have another application with the same problem. Some of this software is per machine based licensing, so it can’t all go in the base image.

Note: If I run the Civica App Thinapp on a physical Windows 7/Office 2010 Pro Plus machine it works fine.

I have run out of ideas now, so just looking for some advice if anyone else has experienced this?

Thanks - Steve.

[admin]

Just try to understand your configuration... looks like the Civica App ThinApp package works fine with natively-installed Office 2010, so did you capture Office 2010 together with the Civica App in the same ThinApp package, and find out the Office 2010 has the license error? How about capturing the Office 2010 itself?

[Steve661]

Thank you for your reply.

I have not captured Office 2010 with Civic App. I have Office 2010 on the base image for this dektop pool. This is where the application has the license error. The additional testing I did using the Thinapp on a physical PC also had Office 2010 installed natively. However, the Thinapp on the physical PC with Win 7/Office 2010 installed natively worked and on the desktop pool which also has Win 7/Office 2010 installed natively I get the license error when running the same Thinapp.

The native Office 2010 in the desktop pool does show as activated though when the Office apps are launched manually. It is only when Word 2010 is launched from the Civica App Thinapp as a mail merge operation that it launches setup and fails attempting to activate.

[admin · Accepted solution]

OK, so you are using Civic App ThinApp package with natively-installed Office 2010, and on some machines you get license error. By default Civic App launches native Office binaries in the virtual environment. You can change package.ini to launch Winword in the native environment, and hopefully the license error can be avoided. For example:

VirtualizeExternalOutOfProcessCOM=0
ChildProcessEnvironmentExceptions=Winword.exe
ChildProcessEnvironmentDefault=Virtual

Here is an example to do something similar:

http://blogs.vmware.com/thinapp/2011/12/enabling-send-as-email-attachment-in-thinapp-packages-when-o...

[Steve661]

Thanks for your help. I will give this a try.

[Steve661]

This was the solution. Thank you for your help with this matter.