Workaround for Installing Office Updates During an Image Build

Ran into an interesting situation with an image build.  I created a custom Office 2010 SP1 install using the OCT.  During execution of my image build task sequence, Software Updates was not detecting any of the updates for Office.  Further diagnosis revealed that the OCT-built install did not put its “hooks” into the Windows Update Agent, therefore neither the SUP or Microsoft Updates could detect for Office updates.  (Side note: once the image was sysprepped, captured, and added into a deployment task sequence, the updates were suddenly available and installed.)

While the cause as to why an OCT-built Office 2010 SP1 install prohibits installation of updates has not been found yet, there is a workaround to run a script that forces Microsoft Update (e.g. WUA) to receive updates for “other products”.  By executing the following VBScript after installing Office, SCCM Software Updates will then be able to install the updates during the image build task sequence.  The original code is from a TechNet blog post, I just added some extra logging for troubleshooting.  Also, if your TS advertisement is configured to “run from server”, then the script will cause the TS to fail.  To get past this, simply copy the script locally first then execute it from that location.

Const ForAppending = 8
Set oFSO = CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set oLogFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile ("C:\ConfigOfficeUpdates.txt", ForAppending, True)
oLogFile.WriteLine "Starting execution of VBScript to configure Office to use Microsoft Updates"
Set ServiceManager = CreateObject("Microsoft.Update.ServiceManager")
ServiceManager.ClientApplicationID = "My App" 

' add the Microsoft Update Service by GUID
Set NewUpdateService = ServiceManager.AddService2("7971f918-a847-4430-9279-4a52d1efe18d",7,"")
oLogFile.WriteLine "Script completed successfully"
wscript.Quit(oLogFile.Close)