OCT in Microsoft® Office 2010 Review

The Office Customization Tool lets you create or modify a customization file. The file contains the Office customizations that applied during the installation of Microsoft Office 2010. In a nutshell, the setup program looks for the customization file in the Updates folder during the installation and applies the customizations establish within the file. In addition, you could use a customization file to alter an existing installation of Office. For example, you could use a customization file to remove specific Office features currently installed on a user’s computer.

Administrators could use the 32-bit Office Customization Tool (OCT) to create, edit, and save OCT customization updates for the 32-bit Office products. While the 64-bit OCT can be used to create, edit, and save OCT updates for the 64-bit Microsoft Office products. The Office Customization Tool is included within Microsoft Office 2010. But, OCT is only volume-licensed editions of Microsoft Office 2010 such as Professional Plus and Enterprise. You could easily tell if your copy of Microsoft Office 2010 qualifies by checking the installation disk or source folders. If you see a folder named Admin, then you have got a volume-license edition and could proceed with the OCT setup.

The Office Customization Tool (OCT) is a tool primarily used by administrators to customize the installation of Microsoft Office 2010. This tool is included in the volume license versions of Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010. The two architecture specific versions of the OCT are available, one for 32-bit Office 2010 and one for 64-bit Office 2010. The 64-bit version of the OCT supports 64-bit client editions of Microsoft Office 2010, and provides the same capabilities, user interface, and configurable settings as the 32-bit version. The OCT files are located in the Admin folder under the x86 in 32-bit and x64 in 64-bit folders. The OCT is part of the Setup program and is the recommended tool for most customizations and you run the OCT by typingsetup.exe /admin at the command line from the root of the network installation point that contains Microsoft Office 2010 source files.

• FIVE – Importing Set-up customization filesImport feature allows administrators to import 32-bit OCT customization .msp files into the 64-bit version of the OCT and vice versa. This allows administrators of mixed environments to do the Set-up customizations one time. If you use the Office Customization Tool to modify an existing .msp customization file you could select the .msp file for the identical product that you customize. For example, if you customize Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010, choose an Office Professional Plus 2010 customization .msp file.
• FOUR – Import featureAdvantage of using the Import feature is that it allows you to make your customizations once and then you could leverage those customizations and you could also import .msp files for equal cross-architecture products only. However, you could not import a 32-bit Microsoft Word 2010 standalone customization .msp file into the 64-bit Office Customization Tool for a 64-bit Office Professional Plus 2010 .msp file.
• THREE – Create an initial Set-up customizationYou could use the import feature if you have created an initial set-up customization .msp file for Microsoft Office 2010 and you can modify the installation to add language packs. In such cases, first add the language packs to the network installation point that contain the Office product source files. Run the OCT from the root of the network installation point then create a new Setup customization file for the same product, and import the original customization .msp file.
• TWO – Set feature installation statesCustomize how the Office features are installed on the user’s computer. To change the installation state of a feature, click on Set feature installation states in the OCT and in the results pane, right-click the feature, and in the shortcut menu click the installation state. Some parent features consist of many child features. Click the plus sign to the left of the parent feature to expand to view child features.
• ONE –  Create Set-up customization updatesThe set-up detects which products are available to create Set-up customization updates and lists the results in the Create a new Setup customization file for the following product list. Because the 64-bit and 32-bit Office files are in different root directories, the 32-bit OCT lists all the 32-bit Office products in the product selection dialog box, and the 64-bit OCT lists the 64-bit Office products.

Office Customization Tool replaced the Custom Installation Wizard, which was the customization tool for previous editions of Office. The OCT generates an MSP that holds all of the options and settings that you specify.