Install Office

Due to the diversity in Microsoft Office offerings, we leave it to the partner to install and configure Office for their NFA deployments. The instructions for this can be found below. This applies to NFA accounts provisioned after May 1st, 2020.  

Different Licensing Options

Before getting started, we'd like to briefly discuss the different licensing options available for AVD users: 

Option 1 - ProPlus + Win10 license combo. This combines the office suite with ProPlus & the Win10 license for AVD desktop logins. This is a good option if partners have their ProPlus licenses gifted by Microsoft and just need the Win10 piece. One thing to note on this is that it doesn't come with the added security features of an M365 license. This means that to enable things like Azure MFA or SSPR the additional Microsoft Entra ID Premium P1 or P2 license is required. 

Option 2 - M365 Business. This is a great option for standard environments. It does have a license cap of 300 users, and does not have all the security features of an M365 E3 or E5 license. However, Microsoft recently announced that it now comes with the full MFA and SSPR offering provided with an Microsoft Entra ID P1 security license. At this time it's only for new purchases, over the next few weeks they will roll it out for existing M365 Business users as well. For updates on the timeline check THIS Microsoft Blog.

Option 3 - M365 E3 or E5. This route is a bit more expensive but doesn't have a license cap and has more robust security features that include things like: 

Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA)
Device Guard
Credential Guard
App Locker
Enterprise Data Protection
Microsoft Entra ID – Conditional Access 

Installation Instructions

*Run the below instructions from the Pool Template or Golden Image where Office is to be installed

**Open Command Prompt(s) as an Administrator via Right Click

STEP 1: Download current installation files

Open command prompt and run the below command (replace with appropriate *.xml file):

Details on current Office Product SKU's

"\\FS01\Installs$\Microsoft 365 Deployment\setup.exe" /download "\\FS01\Installs$\Microsoft 365 Deployment\Microsoft365ProPlusRetail-x64.xml"

Example:

STEP 2: Execute installation

From the same command prompt, run the below command (replace with appropriate *.xml file):
"\\FS01\Installs$\Microsoft 365 Deployment\setup.exe" /configure "\\FS01\Installs$\Microsoft 365 Deployment\Microsoft365ProPlusRetail-x64.xml"

STEP 3: (Optional) Updating office

To update Office to the current version, re-run Step 1 and Step 2 on the host where Office is installed.
To disable the automatic update settings, update the *.xml file and set the 'Updates Enabled="TRUE"' value to FALSE. Reverse to enable automatic updates.

Please visit THIS link for additional instructions