[How to make an Office 2003 cab file for nLite]

Thanks for the heads up Booogy. That links works now.

[How to make an Office 2003 cab file for nLite]

Dude you are in luck. I just did one. I used this guide posted in the "Office Shrinker" forum posted above(Click the first link by Booogy). Here it is.

This is for Office 2003 Pro + SP2 + KB904631 and all work is being done on XP Pro SP2 Full Updates platforms.

What you will need:

- Office 2003 Original Full source from CD.

- Office 2003 SP2 (Full NOT Client). Here

- KB904631 Outlook 2003 Junk E-Mail Filter update: September 2005. Here

- A virtual machine ready with xp SP2 installed and all updates. (That ya got to figure out by yourself... ).

- buckeyeXP's Office Shrinker... iunno... first page... lol

- Microsoft Office 2003 Resource Kit (To be installed on virtual machine). Here

- 7zip (To be installed on virtual machine). Here

- A reshacked version of 7zS.sfx module (For completely silent install). Info Here

- Not mandatory but very handy "Open Cmd Here Powertoy" (To be installed on both physical and virtual machine). Here

On your Computer create 2 Folders in "c:\" O2K3 and SP2

1 - Create an Admin install from your original Office source (CD ?) and install in O2K3 Folder. (More info on topic Here.)

"Full Path to Office source"\setup.exe /a

2 - Splitstream Office 2003 SP2 into your Admin Install. Place your Office2003SP2-KB887616-FullFile-ENU.exe in "c:\"

! - The result of the Extraction will give you 6 files including 3 *.msp files... Only 2 ( MAINSP2ff.msp and OWC11SP2ff.msp ) will be splitstreamed, the 3rd one being an update on office xp web components (Probably only needed when using SP2 on an upgraded version of Office XP... not the case here...).

Extract: (cmd prompt from c:\)
Office2003SP2-KB887616-FullFile-ENU.exe /Q /C /T:C:\SP2

Splitstream: (cmd prompt from c:\SP2)
msiexec /p MAINSP2ff.msp /a C:\O2K3\PRO11.msi SHORTFILENAMES=TRUE /qb
msiexec /p OWC11SP2ff.msp /a C:\O2K3\OWC11.MSI SHORTFILENAMES=TRUE /qb

3 - Splitsream KB904631 the only non included update for full phishing protection... Place office2003-KB904631-FullFile-ENU.exe in "c:\"

Extract:(cmd promt form c:\)
office2003-KB904631-FullFile-ENU.exe /Q /C /T:C:\SP2

Splitstream: (cmd prompt from c:\SP2)
msiexec /p OUTLFLTR.msp /a C:\O2K3\PRO11.msi SHORTFILENAMES=TRUE /qb

You're done for the splitstreaming part...

4 - Shrinking Office: (From now on all happens on the virtual machine).

! - You need a clean install of windows with NO Office software previously installed (I use VMWare and clone a full XP SP2 all updates for this purpose).

1) Copy your O2K3 folder with the Office 2003 SP2 you've just created to the "c:\" of your fresh virtual machine.

2) Install Microsoft Office 2003 Resource Kit on your virtual machine if you haven't done it yet and create your own Transform file you will name Unattended.MST and save in c:\O2K3 on virtual machine. (More info on topic Here.)

! - If you have Office 2003 installed on your physical computer you can create an *.OPS file using the "Microsoft Office 2003 Save My Settings Wizard" or "Profile Wizard" in ORK. This allows you to further tweak your install easily by integrating your actual Office settings into your *.MST... (Keep in mind that at compression stage you will have to include your *.OPS file as well as your *.MST file in the 7z archive but nothing else changes...).

! - Keep in mind that the resultant *.MST file is what will determine the size of your shrunk source so take the time to consider all the apps and modules delivered by Office 2003.

3) Once done... run buckeyeXP's shrink_lang02.exe on your vitrtual machine and follow instructions... (For the rest of the example we'll assume shrunk source is placed in c:\Office2003 on the virtual machine...)

My results at this stage:

Office 2003 SP2 + KB904631 Full source = 637mb

Office 2003 SP2 + KB904631 Shrunk source = 422mb

MST = Keep Access/Excel/Outlook/Word + Most tools and Xtras...

5 - Compress the shrunk source ... (If ya haven't installed 7zip yet on the virtual machine this is the right time...).

Copy your Unattended.MST from c:\O2K3 to c:\Office2003 and compress the entire shrunk source + Unattended.MST to Office2003.7z (Using LZMA method at Ultra compression Level). * If you've used an *.OPS file with your Unattended.MST don't forget to include it in your Office2003.7z.

My results at this stage: 156mb... lol...

6 - Creating the silent .exe (You need a reshacked 7zS.sfx module and a config.txt).

1) Delete everything from your c:\Office2003 on virtual machine except the newly created Office2003.7z

2) Create a config.txt file you will save as UTF-8 format in c:\Office 2003

- With progress bar and cancel option:

;!@Install@!UTF-8!
RunProgram="setup.exe TRANSFORMS=Unattended.MST /qb-"
;!@InstallEnd@!

- Totaly Silent:

;!@Install@!UTF-8!
RunProgram="setup.exe TRANSFORMS=Unattended.MST /qn"
;!@InstallEnd@!

! - More info on switches that can be used in your %OfficeSource%\SETUP.HTM

3) Place your reshacked 7zS.sfx in that same folder.

4) Open a cmd prompt in c:\Office2003 and type:

copy /b 7zS.sfx + config.txt + Office2003.7z Office2003.exe

This will create your silent .exe in the same folder...

Well seems we're all done.... Copy your fresh Office2003.exe out of the virtual machine to your computer.....

Did I forget anything ? Leme know....

Some little Xtras:

- For some reason, even if your *.MST specifies that some options should be kept "locked" and "unavailable", MS Installer won't keep track of those settings and will still offer to install those Items when using the Add & Remove programs | Change or remove MS Office wizard... ??? If anyone has an answer on how to effectively getting rid of unwanted objects from the installer (like graying and really making option unavailable) please let us know.... Btw, this has nothing to do with buckeyeXP's Office shrinker...

- Some of you peeps might want to have a closer look at the Setup.ini files located in your "%OfficeSource%\FILES\SETUP\" and "%OfficeSource%\FILES\OWC11\"... Check the [cache] options at the end of those files...

- Also... It seems Microsoft has released an Enhanced Version of the Office 2003 installer that supports more [cache] options. It can be found Here.

- Usefull links :

Office 2003 Resource Kit Downloads

Description of Office 2003 Service Pack 2

Preparing to deploy Office 2003

Someone should make a PDF of this cause its a brilliant guide.

I used Xable's OfficeUpdater to simplify the slipstreaming process.

OfficerUpdater

The only other thing i did was intergrate Frontpage 2003. Oh and also integrated the updates released since then. This was a little tricky. I had to make a .cmd file and point the Config.txt to it. So the Cmd file contained the lines>

setup.exe TRANSFORMS=Custom_Setup.MST /qb-
Frontpage2003\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=Frontpage2003\CustomFPage.MST /qb-

to run the silent installer and the config.txt looked like this.

;!@Install@!UTF-8!
RunProgram="run.cmd"
;!@InstallEnd@!

You need to use the CMD file cause you can't do multiple RunPrograms in the config.txt

NOTE ALSO: I wasn't able to shrink frontpage. Don't know if its possible. Probably because its separate from the main Office package.

My pre-compressed source was 730mb

After 7zip Compression 243mb Sweeeeeeeeeet!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope this helps man

Good Luck

PS: Forget about CAB. Silent Installer is the way to go for this type of addon. The extra compression it gives is a must it you want to fit it on one CD.

[RELEASE SmartFTP 2.0 build 995]

Brilliant, i thought i was gonna have to make this one myself. It really is a brilliant FTP client.

Cheers Gawker