How To Activate Office With Kms Tools
Berniece Rybacki
To configure and perform deployments of Office LTSC 2021, including Project and Visio, for users in your organization, you use the Office Deployment Tool (ODT). The Office Customization Tool (OCT) that you previously used for Windows Installer (MSI) is no longer used.
The installation files for Office LTSC 2021 are available on the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN) on the internet instead of on the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC). You can install Office LTSC 2021 directly from the Office CDN. Or, you can download the installation files from the Office CDN to a location on your local network, such as a shared folder, and install Office LTSC 2021 from that location. You can use different methods for different sets of devices in your organization. Whichever method you choose, you use the ODT.
Installing directly from the Office CDN requires the least amount of administrative effort and is recommended. But you might have constraints that prevent you from installing directly from the internet. For example, some devices might not have connectivity to the internet or you might have limited bandwidth to the internet.
After you download the Office Deployment Tool, double-click on the officedeploymenttool executable (.exe) file to extract the ODT files. When you're finished, you should have several files: setup.exe and some sample configuration.xml files. For an Office LTSC 2021-specific sample, see Sample configuration.xml file to use with the Office Deployment Tool.
The setup.exe file is the ODT and is a command-line tool that supports downloading and installing Office LTSC 2021. The configuration.xml files are sample files to get you started. You use the configuration.xml file to provide settings for the ODT to use when downloading or installing Office LTSC 2021. The configuration.xml is a simple xml file that can be created and edited in any text editor, such as Notepad. You can name the file anything that you want, as long as it retains the xml file extension.
Once you have a copy of the ODT, you need to create a configuration.xml file. You can create multiple configuration.xml files to be used with the ODT. For example, you can create a configuration.xml file to download and install the 64-bit version of Office LTSC Professional Plus 2021 in English. Then, you can create a different configuration.xml file to install the 32-bit version of Visio LTSC Professional 2021 in French. When you run the ODT from an elevated command prompt, you specify which configuration.xml file to use.
There are a series of settings in the configuration.xml file that you configure to customize the Office LTSC 2021 download or installation. The following table lists the most common settings to configure in the configuration.xml file.
We recommend that you uninstall any previous versions of Office before installing Office LTSC 2021. To help you uninstall versions of Office that use Windows Installer (MSI) as the installation technology, you can use the ODT and specify the RemoveMSI element in your configuration.xml file.
For more information about using RemoveMSI, see Remove existing MSI versions of Office when upgrading to Microsoft 365 Apps. Even though that article is about Microsoft 365 Apps, most of the information also applies to Office LTSC 2021.
To uninstall 2019 versions of Office, Visio, or Project from the device, use the Remove element. You use the Remove element because 2019 versions of Office, Visio, and Project are installed by using Click-to-Run, not Windows Installer (MSI).
Once you have a copy of the ODT and have created your configuration.xml file, you can download the Office LTSC 2021 installation files to your local network. To do that, open an elevated command prompt, go to the folder where you saved the ODT and the configuration.xml file, and type this command:
Once you have a copy of the ODT and have created your configuration.xml file (and downloaded the Office LTSC 2021 installation files to your local network, if necessary), you can install Office LTSC 2021. To do that, open an elevated command prompt, go to the folder where you saved the ODT and the configuration.xml file, and type the following command:
You can also use Microsoft Configuration Manager (current branch) to deploy Office LTSC 2021. The Office 365 Client Installation wizard steps you through the process and builds the configuration.xml file for you. There's an entry for Office LTSC Professional Plus 2021 in the wizard. On that same page, you can also select to deploy Project and Visio. To get to the wizard, in the Configuration Manager console, navigate to Software Library > Overview > Office 365 Client Management.
Office LTSC 2021 no longer includes the Teams client app. However, if the Teams client app was previously installed with Office LTSC 2021, it will continue to be automatically updated approximately every two weeks with new features and quality updates. The update process for Teams is different from the update process for other Office apps, such as Word and Excel. For more information, see Teams update process.
With the Office Deployment Tool (ODT), you can download and deploy Microsoft 365 Apps to your client computers. The ODT gives you more control over installation: you can define which products and languages are installed, how those products should be updated, and whether or not to display the install experience to your users. This article covers all the available options in the tool. To learn how to use the tool itself, see Overview of the Office Deployment Tool.
Best practice: The options in this article show the XML elements and attributes in the configuration file. You can continue to create the configuration file in a text editor, but we recommend using the Office Customization Tool instead. With the Office Customization Tool, you can easily create and modify configuration files in a web-based interface. For more information, see Overview of the Office Customization Tool.
The ODT consists of two files: setup.exe and configuration.xml. To work with the tool, you edit the configuration file to define what options you want, and then run setup.exe from the command line. For example, you can edit the configuration file to download the 64-bit English edition of Microsoft 365 Apps, or you can edit the file to install the 64-bit English edition of Microsoft 365 Apps with the EULA automatically accepted and without Publisher.
When creating the configuration file, we recommend starting with an example file and updating it with the appropriate options for your environment. You can start by copying and pasting the following example into a text file and saving it with a name of your choosing. Use the file to modify the XML elements and attributes and use the rest of this article to learn more details about each of the elements and attributes.
Defines the location of the Microsoft 365 Apps installation files. If the ODT is run in download mode, defines where to save the files. If not included, the ODT looks for installation files in the same folder as the tool, and then use the Content Delivery Network (CDN). If not included and the ODT is run in download mode, the Microsoft 365 Apps installation files are downloaded to the same folder as the tool.
When you download Microsoft 365 Apps to a folder that already contains that version of Microsoft 365 Apps, the ODT conserves your network bandwidth by downloading only the missing files. For example, if you use the ODT to download Microsoft 365 Apps in English and German to a folder that already contains Microsoft 365 Apps in English, only the German language pack is downloaded.
When you use the Version attribute, we recommend including the Channel attribute as well. If you don't include the Channel attribute, the default channel is used, which might not match the specified version.
If Microsoft 365 Apps is already installed on a device, you can use Version="MatchInstalled" to install the same version, even if a newer version is available. This setting can make it easier to add language packs or Visio and Project without updating to a newer version.
Defines whether the 32-bit or 64-bit edition of Microsoft 365 Apps is downloaded or installed. If Microsoft 365 Apps isn't installed on the device and OfficeClientEdition isn't set, the ODT automatically selects the 64-bit edition. However, it selects the 32-bit edition if the device uses a 32-bit version of Windows or has less than 4-GB RAM. If Microsoft 365 Apps is installed and OfficeClientEdition not specified, the ODT matches the architecture of the existing installation of Microsoft 365 Apps. If Microsoft 365 Apps is installed and OfficeClientEdition is specified, then it must match the already installed architecture. If it doesn't, the installation fails, since mixed architectures aren't supported.
Defines which channel to use for installing Microsoft 365 Apps. If Microsoft 365 Apps isn't installed on the device, the default setting for the Channel attribute is Current. If Microsoft 365 Apps is installed on the device and the channel attribute isn't specified, the ODT matches the channel of the existing installation.
This value determines the channel to be installed, regardless of an optionally specified update channel in the Updates element or via Group Policy Setting. If there's such a setting with a different update channel, the channel switch is performed after the installation during the next update cycle. For more information, see Change the Microsoft 365 Apps update channel.
If you're deploying Office LTSC Professional Plus 2021 or Office LTSC Standard 2021, which are volume licensed versions, there's a different update channel you need to use: PerpetualVL2021. For more information, see Update channel for Office LTSC 2021.
If you're deploying Office Professional Plus 2019 or Office Standard 2019, which are volume licensed versions, there's a different update channel you need to use: PerpetualVL2019. For more information, see Update channel for Office 2019.
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