If you customize the Microsoft Office 2008 preferences, you can choose one of the methods that are described below to deploy the preferences to users on the network. Before you deploy the preferences, users must quit all Office applications. The preference setting changes are applied when the users restart their computers.
Note You cannot redeploy an Entourage database after the user has begun to use Entourage 2008
 | Deploying preferences by using Workgroup Manager |
You can use Workgroup Manager to deploy preferences and define privileges by user, by group, or by computer and to perform a broad range of other workgroup management functions. It is well suited for deploying preferences either before or after users begin to work with Office 2008 because you can manage individual preferences in a .plist file without disrupting other settings in the same file. Workgroup Manager does not deploy entire .plist files; instead, it updates .plist files on users' computers by writing individual key/value pairA specifier that consists of two data elements: one (the key) uniquely identifies a parameter; the second (the value) sets a value for that parameter..
When you customize preferences, the customized .plist files are stored in the home folder of the administrator account that you used to log in for that session. When you are ready to deploy these customized preferences, you must log in with that same administrator account because Workgroup Manager deploys the preference settings of the administrator who is currently logged in.
There are some limitations in the way that Office 2008 works with Workgroup Manager:
Office 2008 preferences and settings that are not stored in .plist files cannot be managed by using Workgroup Manager. In particular, Workgroup Manager cannot deploy many of the Entourage preferences because most of them are stored in the Entourage database for each identity instead of in .plist files.
Office 2008 does not provide preference manifest (.manifest) files; therefore, it cannot use Workgroup Manager functionality that requires this type of file.
For information about Workgroup Manager, see
Client Management
in the Mac OS X
Server area of the Apple Web site (www.apple.com/server). For detailed information about managing preferences with Workgroup Manager, see the
Mac OS X Server User Management documentation available for download from the Apple Web site (www.apple.com/server/documentation).
| Deploying preferences using Apple Remote Desktop |
You can create a special .pkg file specifically for deploying preferences. You deploy this .pkg file to the home folders on users' computers by using Apple Remote Desktop or by making the file available for users to copy from a file server.
For information about Apple Remote Desktop, see
Apple Remote Desktop Administrator's Guide on the Apple Web site at http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop.
When you deploy a preference file to a user's computer, the file overwrites all older files in the target location, including all preference settings in those files. This could change user preferences that you did not intend to standardize, and it could be disruptive to a user's work. Therefore, we recommend that you deploy customized preference files before users begin to work with Office 2008, or you should deploy only those .plist files that govern settings for which you want to retain control (for example, the preference files for CEIPMicrosoft Customer Experience Improvement Program, MERPMicrosoft Error Reporting Program, or AutoUpdate). On computers with multiple user accounts, you must deploy preferences to the home folder of each user who has a separate Mac OS X login account.
Some settings, such as the mail server name, are stored in the Entourage 2008 database. You can make changes to many of the Entourage database settings by using AppleScript and then deploying the script to users. You deploy the script by using Apple Remote Desktop. To see the specific Entourage settings that can be modified by using AppleScript, in the Finder, drop the Entourage application icon that is located in the Office 2008 folder onto the Script Editor icon that is located in the /Applications/AppleScript folder.
Note Some Entourage 2008 preferences cannot be changed by using a script. You also cannot change preference settings by deploying the database with new settings to an existing Entourage user identity, because the new database will override the existing local data for that user.
