How do I relocate Office 2007 MSOCache?

We are researching means to make small the footprint of MS Office -
Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook - to deploy in public schools' OLPC
computers or the new crop of netbooks. My testbed, if you will, is an
ASUS eeePC 4G Surf with an SD card for a 2nd drive.

Permit me to give a short chronology:
(1) We slimmed down Office 2007 to the barest of bones. It still
occupied about 1 GB - 25% - of the eeePC 4GB SSD.

(2) We tried instead OpenOffice 3 beta. OO3 occupied only 375 MB.
Better, but our kids liked neither the interface nor the imperfect
correspondance rendering and saving documents.

(3) So we went back to Office 2007. We realized it was the MSOcache
which made the Office 2007 installation so much larger than OpenOffice.
If we could move the MSOcache to an inexpensive SD 2nd drive we could
better control costs (rather than being forced to use, say, an eeePC
8G).

Mr. Cheek's solution -works.- Period. I've not seen evidence it
doesn't. The registry entries exist. They permit change to the location
of the MSOcache. Applying the SP1 Office update in the changed
environment was error-free .......

*I find patronizing to my professionalism* the reasons presented by
Emily Lin and Bob Buckland for locking the location of the MSOcache.
Their reasons translate to:

(1) We designed it that way *For Your Own Good*. (Seriously, did
customers clamor for fewer configuration options?)

(2) We decided you no longer need to rely on a pesky CD or a network
drive to save storage or lack thereof. Instead we intend to *waste your
local storage* because, if you do move MSOcache, we will create
duplicate local copies of substantial size wherever we find components
of Office 2007.

(3) If you are compelled, foolishly, to find a means around our design,
well, *-it is not recommended-* and gives us another excuse to not
provide support to you.

Ah, well. We could use Office 2003 and the existing tools for moving
MSOcache .......... Reasons reminiscent to using XP not Vista on these
small OLPC/netbook machines.

Thank you, Microsoft, for listening.

Harry


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Bob Buckland ?:-\);3777837 Wrote:
The Office 2007 LIS was designed to be on the same drive as the
installed Office 2007 product to reduce the number of times that
installing an update or repairing a product, or changing the
configuration would fail for needing access to the installation source
location or original CD, and could not get to that because the CD
wasn't available or the network drive had been disconnected or mapped
differently or when a drive was added that rearranged the drive letters
on the computer.

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*
hjacobson;3805228 Wrote:
*I find patronizing to my professionalism....*
That I, of the great un-washed world-wide network administrator group,
must be saved from my own presumed stupidity or presumed lack of
foresight to plan for absent CDs, network drives, or extra drive
installations by limiting installation options, by locking the location
of the MSOcache.

Dare I suggest this design decision - to limit choice - was less noble
on Microsoft's part and more business driven. Of no consequence to
global corporations with deep pockets but with serious impact to
deployment of slimmed down OLPC/netbook machines.

Harry


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Yeah i know it works.. (no wonder i havent posted any reply on editting
for network paths). this MSOcache problem seemed so elusive when i ran
into the same desire to move it from c: for space on internet forums.
they all said.. "It can't be done". pfft cornered that ******* in the
registry and "told him where to put it" PUN Intended!! lol

you might also want to consider that they did not know how to move the
msocache themselves. lol

tutt tutt microsoft but it's starting to seem alot like we pay you to
test your software and not the other way around.


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I installed Office 2007 with SP1 to the D: drive. The folder D:\MSOCache
was created and populated accordingly. The SP1 Office 2007 .msp update
was placed into C:\Windows\Installer by the Office 2007 installation.

I invoked Microsoft Update (MU). MU, ignoring or unaware of the
installed Office 2007 SP1 update, downloaded and installed again. Maybe
it tracks MU updates only; I don't know.

But I digress. The MU caused creation of C:\MSOCache, duplicating files
in D:\MSOCache. 1/2 GB of redundant files in all to handle a redundant
update. What sloppy, piggy coding.

But I digress again. 'Junction'
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896768.aspx)
"supports directory symbolic links, where a directory serves as a
symbolic link to another directory on the computer" per Mark
Russinovich.

As there is adequate space on D: to handle the sloppy, piggy activity
and the C: drive is only 4 GB, I moved the contents of the folders
C:\MSOCache and C:\Windows\Installer (about 1 GB total) to D:\MSOCache
and D:\Windows\Installer. Deleting the empty folders, I replaced
C:\MSOCache and C:\Windows\Installer with symbolic links, i.e.,
"junction C:\MSOCache D:\MSOCache" and "junction C:\Windows\Installer
D:\Windows\Installer".

The system - small C:, large D: - *-works.-* Installs of new apps
create files in D:\Windows\Installer. The folders of C:\MSOCache are
simply present alongside their twins in D:\MSOCache. I have not (yet)
run across conflicts.

However, you know the refrain: "This is not supported by Microsoft." At
some point likely I will be reminded that I -*accomodated*- Microsoft's
sloppy, piggy -*fragile*- architecture in an -*unsanctioned*- manner.

Harry


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hjacobson;3823025 Wrote:
..... Installs of new apps create files in D:\Windows\Installer ...... I
have not (yet) run across conflicts.
Oops. Wrong.

I've come across an instance where the symbolic link was removed,
replaced with the folder C:\WINDOWS\Installer, then populated with an
installation database .msi file.

Maybe this has to do with a Group Policy against folder redirection.
Maybe it's hardwired in the Microsoft Installer accompanying XP SP3. I
don't yet know.

I'll report what I find.

Harry


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My stuff becoming more than Office related, I've moved it to the
Customize XP forum http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=992648


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