To support the Windows Installer features of self-repair, installation-on-demand and reinstall, Office 2003 must be able to control how its files are updated. If we simply replace a file with a newer updated version without alerting the Windows Installer, we lose the ability to repair or reinstall the file later if necessary. The file will instead be replaced by the old version and we will lose the hotfix.
For these reasons, hotfixes for Office 2003 are deployed as Windows Installer patch packages (.msp files). These packages have all the information necessary to properly update the Windows Installer database for Office 2003. (See MSDN for complete details: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msi/setup/overview_of_windows_installer.asp) For Office specific deployment details, see the on-line Office Resource Kit: http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork.
Office 2003 hotfixes require Windows Installer 2.x or later to install.
Hotfix Full-File Patch:
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This is a Windows Installer patch package that uses full-file replacement for the affected files. This can be applied to any Office 2003 administrative installation point that is at the required service pack level, regardless of whether other hotfixes have been applied.
The following command line applies the patch to the administrative installation point:
[start] msiexec /a [path to admin image .msi file] /p [path to patch .msp file] SHORTFILENAMES=TRUE
Any subsequent client installation from this image will include the latest version of the files. Existing clients will need to recache and repair to this administrative installation point after the patch is applied by using the following command line:
[start] msiexec /i [path to updated .msi file on the admin image] REINSTALL=[list of features] REINSTALLMODE=vomu
[list of features] should be replaced with either "ALL" (without the quotes) or the following list of features specific to the product being updated:
To apply the full-file patch to a client installation:
Alternatively, the full-file patch package can be applied to a client computer. There are a variety of methods available to distribute MSP files to client computers, such as an e-mail message, a logon script or Microsoft Systems Management Server. Once the file is delivered to the client computer, users can double-click the MSP file to apply the patch to the local computer. The patch can also be run using the following command line:
[start] msiexec /p [path\name of update MSP file]
Miscellaneous:
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Note 1: You can now use Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel to remove some updates. For more information about how to determine whether you can use Add or Remove Programs to remove this specific update and for more general information about how to remove updates, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903771
Note 2: Hotfixes are cumulative. This means that this hotfix contains all prior hotfixes for the affected files. For more information please see the following Knowledge Base article:
