What’s New in Office 2000 Installation

Intelligent Installation — Office 2000 Setup Improvements

In Microsoft Office 97, you had three options when deploying Office throughout an organization:

• Install Office on users’ computers so that users can run the applications locally.
• Leave Office on the source (network or CD-ROM), and run the applications over the network.
• Omit rarely needed components from the installation.

Office 2000 Setup offers much more flexibility. You can install exactly what you need — exactly when you need it.

Installing the features you want

In Office 97, you had to install all of the Office applications in the same way. For example, you could not install Microsoft Word on users’ computers and run Microsoft PowerPoint® from the server — even if most of your users rarely needed PowerPoint.

In Office 2000, the Windows installer technology allows you to choose different installation states for different features. Not only can you install Word locally and leave PowerPoint on the server, but you can also install Word program files locally and leave Word Help files on the server.

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Installing files when you need them

In Office 2000, you can select an additional installation option: Installed on First Use. If you select this option, the files that make up a feature are not physically installed on a user’s computer until the user actually needs the feature.

For example, you can install Word program files to run from the user’s hard disk, and you can set the Word Help files to be installed on first use. Setup does not copy the Word Help files to the user’s computer during installation, but instead the installer records where the Help files are located if they are ever needed.

The first time that the user clicks Help to look for information, Office prompts the installer to copy the Help files to the user’s hard disk. After the files are installed, the command proceeds normally. The user might notice a small delay the first time that the command is used.

The main advantage of this option is that you do not need to configure the installation ahead of time with exactly the features your users might need. Instead, this option leaves open multiple possibilities. Installing features on first use not only saves disk space on users’ computers but also makes your initial Office installation run much more quickly.

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Reinstalling files automatically

Because Office 2000 Setup uses the new Windows installer technology, Office works with the installer to keep track of files on the user’s computer. When a user runs an Office application or chooses an Office command, the installer finds the files in the original source location (on the CD-ROM or the network) and runs them.

If a file is accidentally deleted or becomes corrupt, the installer detects this condition and retrieves a new copy of the file from the installation source on the network or Office CD-ROM. This repair process happens automatically, without the user’s intervention and without the application failures that might otherwise occur.

Users can also perform this function manually by using the Detect and Repair command (Help menu) in any Office 2000 application. This command checks all Office files associated with the application. If any files are missing or corrupted, new copies of the files are restored from the installation source.

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See also

Office 2000 Setup has a number of features that make installing Office easier and more flexible than previous versions of Office. For more information about Office Setup, see Office Setup Program.