Chapter 3. Specific client application problems

Chapter 3. Specific client application problems
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MS Office Setup reports "Cannot change properties of '\\MSOFFICE\\SETUP.INI'"
How to use a Samba share as an administrative share for MS Office, etc.
Microsoft Access database opening errors

MS Office Setup reports "Cannot change properties of '\\MSOFFICE\\SETUP.INI'"

-When installing MS Office on a Samba drive for which you have admin -user permissions, ie. admin users = username, you will find the -setup program unable to complete the installation. -

-To get around this problem, do the installation without admin user -permissions The problem is that MS Office Setup checks that a file is -rdonly by trying to open it for writing. -

-Admin users can always open a file for writing, as they run as root. -You just have to install as a non-admin user and then use "chown -R" -to fix the owner. -

How to use a Samba share as an administrative share for MS Office, etc.

-Microsoft Office products can be installed as an administrative installation -from which the application can either be run off the administratively installed -product that resides on a shared resource, or from which that product can be -installed onto workstation clients. -

-The general mechanism for implementing an adminstrative installation involves -running X:\setup /A, where X is the drive letter of either CDROM or floppy. -

-This installation process will NOT install the product for use per se, but -rather results in unpacking of the compressed distribution files into a target -shared folder. For this process you need write privilidge to the share and it -is desirable to enable file locking and share mode operation during this -process. -

-Subsequent installation of MS Office from this share will FAIL unless certain -precautions are taken. This failure will be caused by share mode operation -which will prevent the MS Office installation process from re-opening various -dynamic link library files and will cause sporadic file not found problems. -

-As soon as the administrative installation (unpacking) has completed -set the following parameters on the share containing it: -

-[MSOP95]
-	path = /where_you_put_it
-	comment = Your comment
-	volume = "The_CD_ROM_Label"
-	read only = yes
-	available = yes
-	share modes = no
-	locking = no
-	browseable = yes
-	public = yes
-

Now you are ready to run the setup program from the Microsoft Windows -workstation as follows: \\"Server_Name"\MSOP95\msoffice\setup -

Microsoft Access database opening errors

-Here are some notes on running MS-Access on a Samba drive from Stefan Kjellberg -

Opening a database in 'exclusive' mode does NOT work. Samba ignores r/w/share modes on file open.

Make sure that you open the database as 'shared' and to 'lock modified records'

Of course locking must be enabled for the particular share (smb.conf)

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Chapter 2. Compiling and installing Samba on a Unix host	Home	Chapter 4. Common errors