- The Microsoft® Windows® Installer (MSI) is the application installation and configuration service for Windows. Version 4.5 of the Windows Installer has several new features, including: Multiple Package Transaction: In a multiple package transaction, you can create a single transaction from multiple packages.
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- Sep 22, 2013 - I have Crossover to install.exe files or.msi - if only a.dll Plug, u can put.dll simple in a various Folder on Mac - if u have used one times crossover for Plug you should choose only crossover as the plugin-path, because u can´t switch the path.
To install package C: example.msi, using a normal installation process with all logging information provided, including verbose output, and storing the output log file at C: package.log, type: msiexec.exe /i 'C: example.msi' /L.V 'C: package.log'. After the Install Option you must include the MSI file. If the MSI file is located in the same folder as that from which your command line is running you need only list its filename. Otherwise you will either need to list its local path, such as C: Installfiles winzipxxx.msi, or its network path, such as server share Installfiles winzipxxx.msi.
Microsoft Office 2013 and 2010 on Linux
Published: 02-01-2016 | Author: Remy van Elst | Text only version of this article
❗ This post is over five years old. It may no longer be up to date. Opinions may have changed.
Table of Contents
- How well does it run?
I'm a *NIX sysadmin. That means I spend most of, and preferably all of my timeinside terminals, text editors and IRC channels. Writing Ansible code to deployenvironments here, doing some Python code to connect this with that there.
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But, sometimes, I get a project plan, document or other file I need to read orwrite. My go to choice is the excellent office suite, LibreOffice.
But, in some cases, documents, spreadsheets or presentations look off on eitherside (Microsoft Office <--> LibreOffice). So, in some cases I need MicrosoftOffice.
The Wine project lets you run Windows software on Linux. With the recentrelease of Wine 1.8, also Microsoft Office 2010. Including Outlook.
This article walks you through getting Microsoft Office 2013 (and 2010) runningon Linux with CrossOver. It guides you through the installation and gives areview on what parts of the Office suite work with Linux.
CrossOver
There is a commercial version of Wine, named CrossOver. It's made byCodeWeavers, who contribute back to the wine project in code, money and people.
CrossOver makes it very easy to install and run Windows applications, in mycase, Microsoft Office. It has a nice GUI frontend for installation and managingwindows applications, good desktop integration (you know, launch menu, rightclick, etc). And the best part it the concept of so-called Bottles. ACrossOver bottle is a self contained Wine environment for one aplication (orsuite). This way, you can have a Windows XP bottle running Office 2010, and aWindows 7 bottle running Office 2013. Oh, and a Windows 98 bottle running thatold critical bussiness application. All without interfering with one another.
Those bottles can also be packaged up into packages like a .deb and .rpm. Ifyou run a Linux Desktop, you create a package for your Windows software andinstall it with your native package manager. Even more awesome, also for largerscale deployments.
Install CrossOver
You need CrossOver for this guide. It makes your life so much easier if you needto run Windows applications on Linux on a regular basis.
You can download a trial here. Select the appropriate file for yourdistribution.
If you need any help installing it, click the link How do I install this? onthe trial page.
Do note that I'm not in any way sponsored by Codeweavers for this article.
I've bought my own CrossOver license for this version, and for a few earlierversions. It's a small amount of money which will save you a huge amount oftime. And, you contribute back to the Wine project.
So, if you like it, consider buying it.
Install Microsoft Office
After you've installed CrossOver Office, start it up via your menu. Click thebig 'Install Windows Software' button.
Do note that you need the installation disc or download from Office. You candownload a trial version if you don't have the installer around.
Search for Office in the dialog and click the version you want to install.
Click Continue. CrossOver detects the install disk if you've mounted it. Ifyou've got a .exe installer, click Choose Installer File and select thecorrect file. In my case, it detected the disk.
Click Continue. CrossOver shows you a summary of the actions.
Click Continue. CrossOver starts installing required applications and fonts,like Arial and the MSXML parser.
Click through the required installations until the actual Office install starts.
Agree with the license, enter your serial code (or don't, I have a volumelicensed version) and select the parts of Office you want to install. Just likea regular Windows installer.
When the install is finished, close it with the button. CrossOver will tell youthe install is completed. Close that as well.
In your desktop menu you have a new category, named 'Windows Applications'.Here's a screenshot of the XFCE Whisker Menu showing it:
Click any of the applications there to start them. You can also start CrossOverand navigate to the specific bottle to run an application or open the controlpanel for that specific application (manage the PST files, hooray).
How well does it run?
On my workstation I've got both Office 2010 and Office 2013 running. My goto isOffice 2010 because, well, that's been on there longer and it works fine. Overthe whole, all applications run very well and smoothly, better than I expected.I'll cover the specific applications seperately.
I also used CrossOver to install the Dutch Language Pack for both versions, inthe specific bottles. That worked without issues as well, and both English andDutch versions of all the applications are available.
Word
The 2010 version runs without issues. WordArt, tables, comments, versioneddocuments, large documents (+70 MB, don't ask), no issues at all.
The most important part for me is the Spell Checker, and that does it's job alsovery well.
The 2013 version feels slower, but that might be because the Thinkpad I use is 4years old. All the above parts work well, but feel slower.
On both versions importing documents, typing, sharing and saving work asexpected.
Excel
Both versions run as expected. Documents with complex formulas work well (workexpense reports yay) and my own documents to keep track of things like carmilage and gasoline usage also run well.
The graphs render without issues. The 2013 version feels slower, but that is thesame point as above.
Autofilter works as well, the thing I use most.
Powerpoint
2010 runs fine. Creating presentations, animations and sounds work withoutproblems. Presenting, with dual screens (VGA/HDMI) works fine and is notsluggish at all. Company templates import and work, very important of course.
2013 is more of an issue. Very slow, and crashes when adding a picture.Presenting without pictures works, but slow.
Outlook
This one might be handy for other sysadmins as well. Outlook 2010 runs withoutissues, connects to IMAP and Exchange (2007, 2013) servers, autodiscover,contact sync, sending and receiving emails, S/MIME certificates, calendaring(with exchange) all work.
Outlook 2013 works as well, but the account creation had to be done viaCrossOver, specificaly the E-mail Control Panel. The button in the UI wouldn'twork.
Outlook 2013 did had trouble connecting to the Exchange 2007 server, but theExchange 2013 server worked without issues. The 2007 one as well after weconfigured it manually, so I guess autodiscover fails there. Outlook 2013crashed when trying to set up S/MIME certificates. Plus, the overall slugishnesswas here as well.
Other Applications
One of my co-workers uses Onenote a lot to keep notes. He has a huge archive ofstuff, and Onenote handled that without problems. The 2010 version that is, the2013 version just gave a popup to enable desktop effects. He now uses Onenote2010 on his Ubuntu machine and couldn't be happier.
As said, there is the option to exort a botle to an installable operating systempackage. This was tested on a machine running Arch Linux, I created both a.rpm and a .deb. The resulting packages were installed on Opensuse 42,CentOS 7, Ubuntu 14.04 and Debian 8 desktops, without issues. They do requirethat CrossOver is installed as well, but that has packages as well.
You can also export bottles to an archive, a .cxarchive, which can be importedinto CrossOver later on. That works fine as well.
I also contacted CrossOver support for an offline activation key. The activationis very simple, login with the username and password you've used to purchase andCrossOver is activated.
I however have one machine that never connects to the internet where we do ourimportant stuff. Support was quick and they provided me with a few files, tobe placed in ~/cxoffice/etc, after which CrossOver is activated. That alsoworked fine.
Conclusion
The whole experience of CrossOver and Microsoft Office on Linux actuallysuprised me. It was both easy as well as working. For most things I'll continueto use LibreOffice and Thunderbird, but having the option to run more nativetools is awesome as well.
A few colleagues have also bought CrossOver after I gave a small demo at work.They do prefer Outlook over Thunderbird, specifically for Exchange. And wefinally switched the administration ladies over to Ubuntu, since Excel runsfine. Their money software runs via Citrix, 'in the cloud', so no reason not toswitch anymore.
So overall, this is a very pragmatic solution. I hope it will switch more peopleover. For me, it did, and still does.
Do note that this is also doable with bare Wine, just not as easy.
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Tags: crossover, linux, microsoft, office, tutorials, ubuntu, wine