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Tip: Tools to Customize Your Office 2010 Deployment

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Ready to roll out Office 2010? Here are four recommended tools you that can help you customize and standardize the Office 2010 deployment in your organization.

Office Customization Tool
The Office Customization Tool (OCT), the recommended tool for most customizations, allows you to customize and roll out a standardized Office installation throughout your organization. OCT lets you configure Setup options, control features that are installed, and so on. Note that while you can use OCT to configure user settings, this only establishes the initial default values. Users can modify most of the settings after Office is installed. To enforce user settings, you should use Group Policy.

Config.xml
Included with the Volume Licensing version of Office 2010, Config.xml lets you control install tasks. While OCT is the primary customization tool, config.xml offers some unique options and can be used to further customize your deployment. It is typically used when an organization needs to install multiple languages or to set up a local install cache.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit
The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) can be used to manage OS and application customization and deployment. MDT is the recommended solution for automating Windows 7 and Office 2010 deployments. MDT 2010 Update 1 supports Office 2010, providing access to the Office customization options—including OCT and Config.xml. It can be used to combine an Office installation with an OS deployment or build a task sequence to install applications only.

Office Deployment Kit for App-V
The Office Deployment Kit for App-V lets you sequence and deploy Office 2010 with Microsoft App-V. The deployment kit is not a traditional tool. Instead, it offers a set of components that enable Office license activation and key virtual proxies to allow proper local system integration.

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