Microsoft Office 2010 is the best Office suite yet created by Microsoft, in my humble opinion!

Over the next several days, I’ll be posting a series of Office 2010 deployment options as created by Microsoft.  Today, we’ll talk about what’s new for deploying Microsoft Office 2010.

New and different for Office 2010

The deployment architecture for Microsoft® Office 2010 is primarily the same as the 2007 Microsoft Office system. One difference is that Office 2010 now requires Office Volume Activation technologies, such as Key Management Service (KMS), Multiple Activation Key (MAK), MAK Proxy, or a combination of these, for participation in any volume licensing programs. In addition, Office 2010 introduces native 64-bit versions of Office products.

In Office 2010, the Office Customization Tool (OCT) and the Config.xml file remain the tools for customization of an installation before the deployment option is chosen.

Choosing the deployment option

You can use five areas of functionality to deploy Office 2010 are categorized into the following five areas: network share, Group Policy startup scripts, managed deployment, application virtualization, and presentation virtualization. You can use any of these options or a combination of them, such as the managed deployment option to deploy and manage virtualized Office 2010 applications. Microsoft does not support Office 2010 deployment by means of Group Policy Software Installation (GPSI). A workable alternative is to assign computer startup scripts.

Customize the installation for Office 2010

Several options are available to customize the installation of Office 2010 before you decide how to deploy it.

• The Office Customization Tool (OCT) is the primary means to customize the installation of Office 2010 applications.
• The Config.xml file can be used to configure some installation tasks.
• Group Policy settings can be used to define and maintain an Office configuration on users' computers. The Group Policy settings are enforced and can be used to create   highly managed or lightly managed configurations.

In my next post on this issue, I will discuss the five various deployment options, as discussed above, starting with the Network Share Deployment Option.