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steampowered
Asked: 2012-10-20 12:24:59 +0800 CST

Install MS Office on Windows Server 2008 - in support of Quickbooks RemoteApp

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How can I install MS Office on Windows Server 2008? The purpose would be to enable Quickbooks to be able to export to Excel.

Quickbooks is set up to run as a RemoteApp in a Terminal Server environment. The Quickbooks applicaiton senses whether or not Excel is installed and will not allow the user to create an Excel report unless Excel is actually installed on the client running Quickbooks.

Since the client and the server are the same machine in a Terminal Server environment, Excel must be installed on Windows Server for the Quickbooks Excel exporting feature to work in this setup.

There is no need to actually use Excel in a Terminal Services environment. We only need to generate the Excel files using the server, then we can use an installed version Excel on a regular Windows 7 machine to work with the Excel file.

MS Office does not normally install on Windows Server. Is there any way to buy a special license? Could we somehow fool Quickbooks into thinking Excel is installed, if that would work?

windows-server-2008

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Excel will install just fine, but you need to be aware of the licensing requirements. The upshot is that you need

    1. a non-retail, non-OEM license of office for every computer that will be connecting to your terminal server and using the excel function.
    2. A remote desktop CAL for every device (or every user) that will connect remotely

    Please see the following for more info on the thrice-benighted world of MS RDS Licensing: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/briefs/remote-desktop-services.aspx

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  2. Excel definitely installs on Server OSes, including 2008. No fooling the OS, or special licenses required.

    The rub is you're doing this on a Terminal Services environment, which does require a key that forgoes the product activation. If you have a volume license agreement, the good news is that it should work. (Does for us.) Just make sure you're actually licensed for the number of users and TS/RD sessions that will using it, or you could end up in violation of your licensing agreement.

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  3. To the best of my knowledge MS Office does indeed install on Server 2008 instances, I've got [redacted] such installs right now. We didn't have any problems getting it on there, at least with Office 2010. Such installs are common in TS environments, so it is quite possible.

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  4. Office 2010, 2013, and 2016 does NOT install on Server 2008 STANDARD, but it does just fine on R2. I am trying to find a workaround or some way I can make that happen after I mistakenly took Office 2007 off a barely-used 2008 Std RDP server (oops) only to realize that nothing newer will install on it, but it seems an in place upgrade to 2008 R2 might be my only option, provided I actually have a license key for it.

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