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Hands Off Office 97 for SMS

Keywords:    Office 97 Installation Tips

Question:

I am in charge of our Systems Management Server and I write the WinBatch files for our Push system. I have run into a problem I can't quite seem to fix in regards to pushing Office 97.

I have always looked at "Screen Names" (WinWaitChild, SendKeysChild) for entering keystrokes. Along comes Office 97 and lo and behold, they keep repeating Screen Names. Is there a way to look at the first few words of the content of a screen in order to enable my "If" statements????

When writing the script for pushing Office 97, I am getting hung up when it comes to checking for the "such and such a program is running". This screen may or may not come up AND it may come up several times depending on which programs the client has open. I tried a "While" loop, but the "Screen Names" are matching those of other functions so I bomb out.

Answer:

  1. The Control Manager extender can do a lot for you.

  2. Or the WinIDGet function will allow you specify what window you want once you figure out which is which.

  3. WinItemChild might actually prove quite helpful : i.e. WinItemChild("Microsoft Office") should return a list of things on the child window, including revealing text you can test for ...i.e. "Look for the CD Key" .

    Exactly what you need to test for I don't know, but a quick check on Office97 install did return text from the child windows when I tried WinItemChild.

  4. Try the following to distinguish between Parent and Child windows. This was very helpful in installing Office97. Search for Article ID: W13364.

  5. Also, the best tool to use for installing Office97 is Microsoft's (NIW) Network Installation Wizard (available from their WEB site). It creates STF (Setup Table Files) for various options of installing Office. We used it to have a separate Desktop and Laptop installation, which made it child's play.

    Caveat Emptor: If you installed Office97 on the network WITHOUT the option of allowing the user to choose where to get the shared files from, there is NO way to get a Laptop install to work properly with the NIW, the shared files will ALWAYS point to the network. The only fix is to re-install choosing the above option.

  6. AppExist will help to determine if an application is currently running. In addition,

    • You could close conflicting windows, before you start the install. OR, just rename them! (get an itemized list of matching windows (either winItemize or WinItemizeEx would probably work), go through the list using WinTitle on each entry. If especially paranoid, do it once more. Then setup 97.)

    • You can get the first matching window when you bring up the office 97 setup, and use WinID from then on, since the first window SHOULD (but not necessarily) be the one you just started. This would work fine at first, after that it would get tricky with new windows. Not knowing exactly what Office97 setup does, and what conflicts you are having, I can't say precisely. Are you using full window names or partial?

Article ID:   W13385
Filename:   Automating Office 97 Install Tips.txt
File Created: 2000:05:15:12:39:08
Last Updated: 2000:05:15:12:39:08