Installing MS Office Pro Plus from Office 365 on Windows RDS

scottalanmiller

In years past, MS Office obtained via Office 365 was not eligible for deployment to Windows RDS (Remote Desktop Services) or any terminal server, volume licensing was required. Microsoft eventually revamped this policy and now MS Office 2016 can be deployed via Office 365 licensing onto RDS servers, which is great news for a lot of organizations.

You can use Office 365 licensing for MS Office for both RDS (shared session) deployments as well as VDI deployments. This applies to Visio acquired through Office 365, as well.

In order to comply properly with Office 365 licensing requirements for shared infrastructure, our MS Office installation must be deployed using Microsoft's Office Deployment Tool...

Download Microsoft Office Deployment Tool for MS Office 2013
Download Microsoft Office Deployment Tool for MS Office 2016

You will need to install a normal, working RDS server. Then before installing MS Office Pro Plus from Office 365, you will need to create an answer file so that it can install as needed:

<Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="True" /> 
<Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="1" />

Now that you have that file, you can use that answer file to install Office Pro Plus.

This should be a relatively quick and mostly painless process. This will allow each user to activate their MS Office Pro Plus O365 subscription when they sign in to the RDS server for the first time.

References:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn782858.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn782860.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219426.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/43419d08-4517-45e8-8cb6-ccec1b8b85bf#BKMK_ConfigureCmd

CloudKnight

Great post, I used this method about a month ago to create an offline install as well, was a lot quicker then keep downloading directly from 365, especially if you have not got a quick connection and install office regularly on users machines. When you first run office it ask for an activation key and under the input box is a link saying activate using an email address, you then just enter a 365 email address which has the relevant licence attached.

Dashrender

Scott, how does this work for non static profiles?