If you are planning deploying Office 2010 throughout an enterprise read this.

Although I have been working with Office 2010 for a while, I wasn’t aware of the KMS Server specific requirements until today when we were asked to load the Office 2010 KMS key into one of our customers KMS servers.

A dedicated server is not needed to run KMS for Office 2010. A KMS host is a lightweight service, and you can co-host an Office 2010 and Windows KMS host. However, only Windows Server 2003, volume editions of Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 are supported as Office 2010 KMS hosts

…..hmmm, must be a typo, they probably forgot to list Windows Server 2008……but no, this isn’t a typo it’s real, Windows Server 2008 is not a supported platform to host the KMS Server for Office 2010 activations and yes Windows Server 2003 is supported. Did they just forgot that in between Server 2003 and Server 2008 R2 they had shipped Server 2008? No they didn’t, see the comment below posted on the Office 2010 activation forum by Ted Way who works on the Office Team.

In short, WS 2008 and WS 2008 R2 have different code bases.  It would take a substantial amount of work and require a service pack, not a patch.  A few common questions:

- Why is WS 2003 supported but not WS 2008?  WS 2003 did not have the KMS service, so it was easier to add the KMS service.

- Why can WS 2008 R2 and W7 be activated just by patching WS 2008?  All this patch contains are license files that recognize the new KMS host key to activate WS 2008 R2 and W7.  No change to the KMS service was required.  The KMS service that shipped in WS 2008 does not meet the requirements that Office has.

- What are the alternatives?  Use a WS 2003, WS 2008 R2, or W7 box as your Office KMS host.  They can also be on DNS, and Office will try all the KMS hosts it finds on DNS until one succeeds.  If you must use WS 2008, then you can run a WS 2003, WS 2008 R2, or W7 VM on the WS 2008 machine.

You’re frustrated, and rightly so.  I’m on the Office team, and believe me, if there was an easy way to get WS 2008 to work as an Office KMS host, I would be jumping on it.  It does not make sense for us from a business perspective to have any hindrance in Office deployment, so we would not arbitrarily impose this burden on you, however arbitrary it seems.

Office and Windows did work very closely together during the O14 cycle, and that’s why W7 and WS 2008 R2 support Office.  However, WS 2008 had already shipped, which meant any changes would have to be done post-RTM.

Obviously this is not the answer you want to hear, and my goal is not to make you happy in this response, but I hope you at least have a better understanding of why things are the way they are.

More about Office 2010 Volume Activation:

Office 2010 Volume Activation
Volume Activation for Office 2010
Frequently asked questions: Volume activation of Office 2010
Volume activation quick start guide for Office 2010

If you are in the process of deciding whether to deploy Office 2010 32-bit or 64-bit, I recommend to read through the following content. Note that Microsoft recommends installing Office 32 Bit even on Windows 7 64 bit.

TechNet – 64-bit editions of Office 2010
Understanding 64-Bit Office
Compatibility Between the 32-bit and 64-bit Versions of Office 2010
64-bit Client Installation of Microsoft Office 2010
Office Resource Kit Blog – Office 2010 64-bit editions
4SysOps – Office 2010 – 64-bit vs. 32-bit – Part 1: Installation
Microsoft Office 2010 Technology Guarantee: FAQ

This book covers information about the fundamentals of Deploying Microsoft Office 2010. Get it here

Being one of the lucky ones who was able to sign-up to the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview program, I have started looking at the deployment of Microsoft Office 2010 today.

My first observation was that unfortunately the provided documentation seems to be ahead of the Office Installation sources that have been made available for download. I noticed this when making an attempt to run the setup.exe /admin command which would normally launch the Office Customization Wizard, but it wouldn’t because the necessary components that are usually located within the Admin folder aren’t available yet, in fact the whole Admin folder as such seems to be missing. OK, so no advanced customizations for now, back to basic.

The current Office 2010 beta that is made available for download is packaged into an executable called “O2010_SingleImage_retail_ship_x86_en-us.exe”. (32 bit version). To create the administrative installation point, extract the content using the following command:

O2010_SingleImage_retail_ship_x86_en-us.exe /extract:c:\office2010

You should then see the following content within the C:\Office2010 folder.

As a next step, open the config.xml file located within the folder SingleImage.WW and modify the file as shown below. (replace the product key with the one you received).

And finally create a batch file that runs the following command:

setup.exe /config SingleImage.WW\config.xml

Office 2010 Beta will now be installed in silent mode. this might be helpful when planning an automated deployment for testing purposes.

More about Office 2010:

Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering blog

Backstage with Office 2010

Office 2010 – The Movie (I recommend watching this one)

Office 2010 for IT Pros

A Look At Office 2010 with Chris Capossela