We our using these and a number of other MCX preferences for Office 2008 successfully on new clients running OS 10.6.2 with servers on 10.5.8.

Given that success, we wanted to go ahead and install Office 2008 on Intel Core Solo Mac Minis that are running OS 10.4.11. We knew that we would get some significant performance and management benefits from moving these machines from Office 2004 to 2008. We deployed the install via ARD as per the instructions on the MS:Mac website so as not to compromise security. We have preferences set in WGM exactly the same as they are for the 10.6 iMacs. (com.microsoft.office: 2008\FirstRun\SetupAssistCompleted; Value: 1; Integer; State: often)

>>>When you log in as a user with his or her network home account and launch Word, Excel, or PowerPoint for the first time, the Setup Assistant still opens. Why?

The only differences between the labs that are working and those that aren’t are:
- OS (10.4 vs. 10.6)
- Installation Method (Package install deployed via ARD in 10.4 vs. Installed through image deployment in 10.6)
- Processor (Intel Core Solo-10.4 vs. Intel Core 2 Duo-10.6)
- RAM (512 MB-10.4 vs. 2 GB-10.6)

Any help would be greatly, greatly appreciated!

Thank you…

-Efren

I was getting the same error message as you. My fix was to add the following files to Workgroup Manager’s “Detail” section.

com.microsoft.entourage.database_daemon.plist
com.microsoft.entourage.database_utility.plist

Don’t ask me why but Office seems to need these files to verify the integrity of the database.

Hope it helps.

-Efren

i’m managing the setup assistant key at a client who’s using managed portable homes for all users. they also have individually licensed copies of office 2008.

managing the first run key has no effect, as any new local, network, or portable user gets prompted to enter the serial number upon first launch of office apps. it doesn’t ask again, but i obviously don’t want users to have to keep entering serials, thus introducing potential for dupes across machines.

with the key managed via mcx, users receive the proper value. once setup assistant launches, it reverts to 0. the ~/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist file also doesn’t exist until the assistant completes. since serials are unique here, i can’t see an easy way to manage that plist.

can you think of any way to resolve this?

I had copied the info in text edit but I don’t know how to actually re-import it back into my system. I’m not sure what I have to name the file and where it would go.

Please help this n00b mac user get back to work.

http://managingosx.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/mcx-dslocal-and-leopard/
http://managingosx.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/macworld-mcx-presentation/