The Microsoft Office 2011 installer and Office 2011 update installers include functionality to force browsers and Office applications to close before the installation runs. This functionality can be helpful if you’re installing Office 2011, but more often then not is a headache to Mac admins who want to remotely deploy the installer(s).
The script that controls the application quitting function is embedded in one of the Office 2011 installers’ included installer packages. To fix this, the embedded installer package in question needs to be edited to remove the script’s contents. See below the jump for the procedure.
1. Open Terminal and run the following command to expand the contents of the Office installer or update installer package into a new directory. In this example, I’m expanding the contents into a director named office_edit
This should create a directory named office_edit with a number of installer packages inside. The problem script will be inside the package whose name includes all_quit.
2. Run the following command to edit the script (adjusting for current name of the all_quit installer package):
3. Replace all of the script’s current contents with the following content:
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#!/bin/bash exit 0 |
The exit 0 will cause the script to exit immediately without causing other ill-effects.
4. To convert the directory back into an installer package, run the following command:
Note: The flattening will remove the digital certificate that the Office 2011 installers normally include. For most deployment tools, this should not be a problem but Gatekeeper may flag it if the installer is downloaded via a web browser.
At this point, you will have an Office 2011 installer where the application quitting function will not run. This should make deploying the modified Office 2011 installer or update installer easier.