Step 2

The next step is to decompress the Administrative Update into a folder on your hard drive. I suggest doing this to a folder different from where you extracted the Office XP files. Either make the directory now, or after you begin the Administrator Update (named "oxpsp1a.exe").

You can run the command "x:\oxpsp1a.exe" from the "Run" menu, where "x" is equal to the drive letter where you downloaded the admin install, or just double click on the install file. This will pop up the EULA for the update. Click "Yes" and continue...

You'll be asked where to extract the update. Enter it here or use the browse button if you've made the folder already. Don't worry if you specify a directory that doesn't exist, as it'll be made automatically.

Once you click "OK", the file extraction begins...

You should have two files located in the directory you extracted to. A large file that is named MAINSP1_Admin.msp, which updates core components for Office XP, and a smaller one called OWC10SP1_Admin.msp, which updates Office Web Components.

Step 3

Start the "Run" command from your "Start" menu again. You'll have to enter the following:

msiexec /p x:\admin\mainsp1_admin.msp /a x:\office\proplus.msi shortfilenames=true /qb

Where "x" is the drive letter where the files are located. This will update the core components.

Once that is done, you'll need to update the web components. The instructions are identical as before:

msiexec /p x:\admin\owc10sp1_admin.msp /a x:\office\owc10.msi shortfilenames=true /qb

You'll be presented with a series of progress windows for each installation as follows...

When it's done, there won't be any "Installation Complete" dialogue box, so make sure you wait until the last window simply disappears.

I'm guessing a few of you are wondering what all those commands are. Basically, "msiexec" is the executable name for Windows Installer.

"/p" enables Windows Installer to apply an update to an existing installation, which in this case is the copied files on your hard drive.

The "/a" is probably not necessary for the majority of you, as it's the switch that allows the Windows Installer to perform an administrative installation of a product on a network share. I included it because anyone who wants to update over the network will need to know this.

"shortfilenames=true" tells Windows Installer to make all the file names and folders with MS-DOS-compatible file names. I don't really know why this is necessary, but likely needed since it's a requirement for running files from a command line.

"/qb" limits the installation options to a very basic level. No need for a dozen pop ups and button presses when all you need to do is to click OK each time.

You can read a lot more about this on the .

Once this is complete, you can either burn the contents of the folder to CD or leave them on your hard drive. It's about 630MB in all.

Step 4

Since the release of Service Pack 1, there has been a new update called the "". I'm assuming you know that since this was released after SP1, the patch should be integrated after you integrate SP1 into the Office XP files. You'll have to the update and save it to your hard drive.

Extracting the MSP file differs from the administrator update of SP1. All subsequent patches released by Microsoft have to be done via command lines and switches. It really isn't hard, simply type the name of the patch, with the "/?" switch to see your options if you want to know what they are, but for this patch, the switches are as follows...

Therefore, the proper command in your "Run" menu should be:

x:\oxpauiu.exe /t:x:\offup2 /c

Wwhere "x:\oxpauiu.exe" represents the location and the name of the file you want to decompress. As usual, "x" is whatever drive letter you use is, and the .exe name will change depending on the patch. the "/t:x:\offup2" directs the files to go into a temporary folder, which is made before or during the execution of this command. The "/t:" is what actually says "go here" and "here" is the "x:\offup2". I used "offup2" as my working directory, but you can call it whatever you want. Finally, the "/c" tells the extracted files to only be copied to that particular folder.

For this patch to be integrated with your Office XP Service Pack 1 install, run the command as follows:

msiexec /p x:\offup2\MSCTF.msp /a x:\office\proplus.msi shortfilenames=true /qb

For some strange reason, this took a long time to do, but I checked the log files, and it worked...

=== Logging stopped: 2/1/2002 13:53:17 ===
MSI (s) (38:94): Product: Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage -- Installation operation completed successfully.

It took a few tries for me to figure it out, but as far as I know, the one constant in the above command is the target location "x:\%name%\proplus.msi". I was looking everywhere for the MSCTF.MSI file, but it doesn't exist.

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