Can you explain 'Install Wizard' screens for Office?

The Office install wizard dialogue requires login credentials and product location (UNC) paths so that when the Office updates run later, they have access to Office installation files that support the correct operation of the update.

Login Credentials for the UNC

The install wizard will prompt for credentials as shown here.

The account above should generally be a "domain" account. It can also be a normal user account, as long as the Office network share specified on the next screen is accessible. A local administrator account may fail because it does not have network access rights to the UNC specified below.

If you get error 0x0000052e in the deployment status window, which is 1326 decimal, which means Logon Failure: unknown user name or bad password, use a different account that will be able to access the specified UNC.

Specifying the UNC Path(s) for Office

To see an example of an Office network share, click here for a screen shot of an office 2000 file structure. This is what the UNC is pointing at. Of course, the actual file-structure varies with the product version.

You will also be prompted for the UNC location (NOT drive letter) of the network share, meaning \\hostname\sharename, NOT X:\some-directory. When prompted for a UNC, you are expected to know what version of Office is on the target as shown in the screen shot below.

Important: Picking the correct version is important because during deployment the targets registry will be probed to verify that we're using the correct installation files to update the correct target.

Important: For an XP target, you're window prompt will list more versions than for Windows 2000. Note that there are similar but different versions. Selecting the wrong version can return the error below.

If you specify a UNC for "Professional" and it fails, you may need to enter the UNC spec in "Professional Enterprise" instead, or in "ProfessionalSE" (special edition)! Picking the wrong "Professional" version, for example, may result in a dialogue box with the message:

"The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable", followed by:

"Click OK to try again, or enter an alternate path to a folder containing the installation package PRO.MSI in the box below"

This happens because the Microsoft Installer (MSI) you're pointing at with the UNC isn't correct for the installed version of the product, as indicated by registry data on the target. To see what version of Office is on the target, and from where it was originally installed, you can examine this registry key where (HKLM = HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE):

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products\9040xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This key is where the Microsoft Installer records products it installed, so you'll see a variety of entries (long strings) under "Products" as shown below in yellow. On the right you can see my machine actually has Office 2000 Premium on it. Clicking the "SourceList" key will show you the original installation path.

Knowing where this key is will help you fix "Office" deployment problems.