Desktop

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Microsoft "Admin" flag

0 helpful
5 replies

by bryan james

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I recall from my school days that if you installed a Microsoft product with the "-a" flag it would allow you to do network setups from then on. This flag doesn't seem to work anymore. Does anyone know the flag that is used now?
(This would be used if you had multiple licenses so that rather than re-entering the CD key each time it would on the initial install ask for the number of licenses you owned)

Bryan

5 replies

by sgt_shultz

whatchu talkin about, cowboy? you used to be able to do this with office. that what you want? what versions you have your hands on? how many pc's you talking about? tell us more...

by bryan james

Yes I'm speaking of Office and specifically Office XP Pro. We have 50 licenses, and one install CD (licenses were purchased all at one time.)We are using about 10 of those. Rather than have to carry the CD to each machine (and thus taking the timeto do a full install rather than starting a number at the same time.) I would like to be able to do this over the network.

by beermonster

Hi,
I don't know if this is your problem, but in office XP a network install (which still uses the /a switch) is only possible if you have the enterprise edition. I haven't tried this, but you can pass parameters to an MSI file, one of which is the cd key. This means that you can dump the source files on a network share and install from them as if the files were local, and have your users (or yourself) start the install from a batch file that contains the parameter. There is a technet article that covers this - search at microsoft.com/technet

for article 223393 which covers the procedure on office 2000. Hope this helps....

This discussion is closed to new replies.