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OpenOffice.Org in a Corporate Environment?
robpoe asks: "I've been working on a rollout plan for OpenOffice.org 2.0 for a medium sized network. This network runs a number of different MS Office versions, and we absolutely must retain the Microsoft Office 97/2000/2002 file formats (for interoperability with the public and other entities). Getting our versions of Office to 2003 is $65k+, so we're looking closely at OOo. The problem is, since OOo keeps track of changes per user, and we have users that move around (and no, Roaming Profiles are not an option for us), and you cannot expect a user to change those preferences on every computer they log in to. Let's hear some great deployment plans for keeping the default file type, and even general rollout plans. How are you doing it?"
"It seems that nobody has done this (or documented it) that I've found. Let's see if we can get a good thing going by documenting a good, easy to manage rollout plan. Oh, and the default for saving files has to remain in Office 97/2k/xp format.
What are you using to deploy OOo automatically on your network. Assume that we have capability of login script (batch files / registry changes), but no SMS/ZenWorks/etc.
What are you using to deploy OOo automatically on your network. Assume that we have capability of login script (batch files / registry changes), but no SMS/ZenWorks/etc.
Elementary, Watson.
Once a user logs on, a logon script mounts his own personal "network drive" from a central file server.
Just configure OpenOffice so that OpenOffice will read (and write) the OO configuration from that personal "network drive".
Yes, a user could still mess up his configuration, but that would only affect himself, not others.
Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
Why not just keep Office 2000/XP?
Just run the entire thing off of a thumb drive or live distribution that they can use anywhere they go that mounts your netdrive ;)
You want to put too many constraints on the deployment. You need to realise that it's not a Microsoft so you'll have to accept OOo the way it is.
While this doesn't address your question, you mention the necessity of using MS office files. Be absolutely sure you are aware of the limitations of importing/exporting MS office documents. Contrary to what a lot of slashdotters imply, the document compatibility is only so-so when working with complex Word and Powerpoint files, which forced me back away from OO.org. Don't get me wrong - I don't like MS Office myself. But when forced to work with MS Office files, it's incredibly difficult to use any other tool.
I imagine it can't be too difficult to build your own distro of OOo that saves in MS Office format by default.
Make an OpenOffice.org BASIC macro that sets the configuration settings. Put the macro in an empty document, and make it autoopen that document on startup only once (also code the document so it closes automatically once it's done).
Karma: Excellent (fuck, even in the future moderation doesn't work!)
Since you're going to make a fairly large paradigm shift anyway, why not go all the way and centrally host it? Running it over your favorite remote protocol might work fine, it wont bloat or slow down the clients, you can insta-upgrade people to new versions, and the roaming profile requirement evaporates.
If people save to some network share, and their PCs can access that, then there's no problem. Map some printers back to local clients (depends on how you do the remote session, might be LPD, share, or LPT redirect), and people might not ever know they're NOT on the local machine.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
For $65k you should be able to bargain with MSFT somehow. Academia does it by department which should be far less than what you pay... and it is department negoiated, not University wide. In other news, expect a slashdot article in a month stating that "I got fired for installing OO 2.0 on our corp. network".
MS Office doesn't even work with highly complex objects and docs... even between versions or across different computers.
Via group policy you can redirect the users' application data folder to a drive on a file server. Assuming Open Office saves the user configuration in the %user name%\Application Data folder, it should work.
Of course, if you don't already have enough space on your servers; you've got another fight on your hands.
Good luck!
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
We are a much smaller company - at only $8m a year in sales, but here's how we do it:
.xls or .doc for your files.
12-15 users all log into a central server running Fedora Core 3 using thin clients. We currently use the excellent LTSP (www.ltsp.org) packages to accomplish this. Through experience we have found that a Pentium 4 server with about 2 gigs of RAM can comfortably handle up to 15 users or so, more than that and the load gets a bit too heavy. The programs that eat up the most memory and CPU cycles are Firefox, Evolution, Open Office, and Adobe Acrobat. We do allow streaming radio with xmms, because it doesn't eat up too much bandwidth or memory, and our users like it. The desktop clients themselves are old Pentium II boxes with 64mb of ram, no hard drives, and no cd-roms.
All our sales reps use OpenOffice every day to type up their quotes, fax cover sheets, etc. My secretary uses OpenOffice Calc to do spreadsheet work for our government contracts. It's easy to set all your clients to default to MS file formats - go into the File > Save settings and set them to always use
You don't need to use thin clients, however, to use Open Office. We just went the thin client route because it was inexpensive and easy to do with existing hardware. We are planning to upgrade soon so that each user has their own desktop machine running local apps, but still mounting the home directories on the server.
I suppose if it can be done with 15 computers running linux, you could also do it with your Windows boxes. Just make sure they all have the same OO settings, and that they are all set to save in the proper file formats before your users even get a chance to work with it. OO works almost like MS Office - but be prepared for lots of complaining from users who will say "But Microsoft Office didn't work this way" . . .
I'm far from an expert, but I've been using OO.o for over two years now.
My first tip is at home or for basic users, you can go into
Tools
Options
Java
Disable the Java, and your startup time is almost certainly going to improve.
[Another Slashdotter showed me this trick, and it apparently disables macros or something I don't use much if ever.]
I install OO.o on a computer, and log into the profile that will run it, hit enter a few times to accept the agreement, and say I've already registered then proceed. This loads the quickstarter into the Startup, and if MS Antispyware is running it might even ask if you want it to run every time.
Since I image computers and roll out a standard image when a machine needs redoing, I don't worry about standard config settings yet. Most machines I put it on don't have Word, so I set OO to automatically open Word files, when I install it.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Ditto. This is exactly how we do it do.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Be careful about compatibility. The MS Office compatibility in OpenOffice is not all it's cracked up to be - even things like bullets and headings change fonts and spacings during conversions. IMHO it's better for you to work in native formats and send PDF files around.
Why would anyone want to use a text editor that is not vi?
They only solve this problem for EVERY app on your network.
You're basically asking for the features of Roaming Profiles without having to actually implement them.
Why not hire a capable programmer for half of what buying office would have cost, and have him make changes which are useful for your company. Chances are that what one company needs, others will as well. Therefore you save money, 1/2 this time around, and get to customize it any way you see fit for your users, and if its something others like, then the changes can be pushed upstream and incorporated. I'm sure many companies would love a quiet auto installer which could be deployed via batch script without user clicking yes/no/next/I agree and with default output settings set to .doc.
..that any of the 3 people who have done this in a medium size company are going to be giving away any of their secrets here.
Consider biting the bullet and spending the money. $65k, depending on where you're located, could be much cheaper then the amount of money you'll have to spend on supporting Open Office. Microsoft Sharepoint allows people to easily move between computers, yet still have access to documents in a central repository.
No, I will not work for your startup
http://www.google.ca/search?q=hosted+desktop+vmwar e
So you want all users on a machine to have the same config for OO.o? Why not put the config files in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users ? Once the settings are ok, you put them there and everyone has the same config, with the default save format to .doc if you want.
Why not just keep Office 2000/XP?
This is a valid question that shouldn't have been modded as flamebait. Sure, its an unpopular question considering the /. crowd but, still
valid.
The first option that is usually overlooked in IT is, "Do Nothing". If any software product is meeting a businesses needs then why replace it without a good enough reason. Will the benefits of switching form product A to product C outweigh the cost.
I love new stuff as much as the next guy but, if a product works, even one made by M$, then asking if your company should continue to use it is a question any IT Pro should ask.
There plenty of good reasons to switch to OOo but, don't do it just because it's not a M$ product.
[Gets off soap box]
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
"and we have users that move around (and no, Roaming Profiles are not an option for us)"
Without roaming profiles, how would this be any different in MS Office land?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
you can use http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/portable_ope noffice/ to implement the portablity, and the price of USB drives are fairly cheap, at a cost of $90 for 1 GB not bad...
Yeah, that will work great when I am in the field at a customer site with no internet access... what else ya got?
I like AC's thumb drive solution...
Since you're going to make a fairly large paradigm shift anyway..
Ugh...
I use portable open office; buy everyone a USB pen (which will be a fractional cost compared to 65K), download once, install on each pen.
e noffice/
http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/portable_op
Only drawback I see is that you're trusting the users to not lose these pens.
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
The larger issue here is that a word processor really shouldn't be expected to be a page layout program. If you have a document that you want to "publish" with fancy layouts and everything, then yes, by all means render it out as PDF. If you have a living document that you want people to collaborate on, do it in Word, but you shouldn't expect the final product to be the equivalent of a Quark layout. And -- hey, marketing people, I'm talking to you -- if all you have is a press release with some text in it, don't bother to send it as an attachment; just cut and paste it into an e-mail as text, already!
Which brings me to my question: Does OpenOffice.org Writer support the equivalent of Word's "Normal" layout? Every time I open a document in Writer it shows it to me in a page view, with borders around the "paper" and everything. I don't want that. I want what word processors like WordPerfect used to do in the Good Ole Days, which was give me an area in which to edit a document. A few type styles and bullet points here and there are fine, but all that fancy formatting stuff should come later, using programs that were designed for it. (And the fact that all the screenshots I've seen of Office 12 are also using the Print view is starting to make me nervous...)
Breakfast served all day!
Different versions of MS Office also don't have "perfect compatibility" with each other. In my experience, using OOo is not much different from using a different version of MS Office. Overall, it's probably best simply to avoid "complex Word and PowerPoint files" altogether.
It would appear you don't need the latest version of MS Office since your considering moving to OO in which case based on what your saying it would seem better to stay put with what you have now.
You mention "we absolutely must retain the Microsoft Office 97/2000/2002 file formats (for interoperability with the public and other entities). ".
Do you really want the possibility of the "public and other entities" getting stuff that isn't going to render perfectly? It could have a terrible affect on your business image.
I use a variety of computers, not all connected to the same network. I carry my world around with me on my usb memory stick. Actually, mine is a memory stick/mp3 player. Given the size these things are getting to be, you could probably install OO right on the stick, then you'd never be without your preferences. (only half kidding.)
doesn't that still require that you change the profile setting for each user at each machine they log in to? he's trying to avoid that.
this is slashdot. i'm sure you'll all rip me a new asshole for being so obviously clueless, and demand that i surrender my firstborn child to the god of stupid sacrifices for asking such an idiotic question, so just save yourselves the effort before you hit 'reply', because i'm not going to read any replies anyway.
Why don't you spend 35K on someone to implement all the OOo you can stand.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
OO can be confusing to some users. Try working with ABI word before opting for OO. Similar enough interface.
Acompw
Despite what the parent says, you DO NOT NEED TO PUT THIS ON A THUMBDRIVE! All it really equates to is a fully preconfigured and compartimentalized "install" of OOo. Need to update it? No worries, roll out a new version (or a diff) of the changed files. Everything is housed under the one directory.
I use the portable version of FireFox and Thunderbird for myself and the inlaws because you can always guarentee that you've got all of the config files and user data (bookmarks and emails in their cases) under the one folder, so backups and updates are 100x easier (least for me). YMMV, but it's worht a look!!
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
No. Lets say we mount the users' home drive as drive letter H. You can do this with windows policies or a login script. No touching workstations. Then we configure the base install of OO.org to look in H:\ooo-settings\ for all it's config data.
Boom! Unique settings for each user without roaming profiles
To save default file format in OO.o:
"Tools" Menu / "Options" / "Load/Save" Option / "Always save as:" dropdown
And continue useing the software that already meets your needs. OO is not a corporate replacement for MS Office. sorry.
Especially the really heavy users of Excel? The ones who build "models"? Don't tell them, but all that "macro" stuff they build? It's essentially a furball of VB. Furball? Yes, because it's been written by somebody who doesn't know how to program. They just keep whacking at it until it works.
And guess what? It doesn't work in OpenOffice.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Is this something like a config file that keeps track of toolbar/font/etc. customization and such? Is OP saying he wants to keep these configs for every user but not use roaming profiles or network shares? If you have your laptop #1 in the field and user Bob logs in and changes default font to Helvetica, you want Bob to have that set as default when he uses laptop #2 on a different day? If not, as another suggested, store the user configs in all users profile. Otherwise maybe use folder replication on user profiles when they login to the domain?
this sig deleted by another sig
We're less than a dozen people though, so I can't comment on large-scale deployments. Still, we haven't had too much trouble passing documents around to people outside our company, since OOo has native PDF support (unlike Microsoft Office). We use the OpenDocument format internally, and it works just fine for us. Frankly, I just don't think Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org are that different, unless you're going to be doing a lot of macro programming.
Assuming a windows environment you would use offline files, that's normally how people sync with network drives.
I'm probably crazy but, I'm thinking it's kind of a "convince me" kind of post rather than a "solve my problem."
Unless someone WAY at the top of the organization drives this, advocating the move is more likely to make you look bad. The first hiccup and the brown-stuff rolls downhill to your door. Present the facts and be done.
If $65K really is an intollerably large chunk of change, then I don't really understand why there's even a question.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
...he has to retain high compatability with office, sending out documents in PDF format is useless. It would seem that the people he is sending stuff to needs to view, edit, change, and resend back whatever it is he is sending them. PDF is great if you wanna see it and print it...bout it.
As such, may as well either stay with what you have, or pay the money and upgrade to Office 2k3. Or you can wait til Office 12 comes out - it's pretty nice.
I work at a local medium-sized fire department in my area doing tech work at their station as a hobby and OOo is greatly loved by them (99% are non-techy per se) seeing that their board would be shelling since they wanted an Office 2003 upgrade for all 10 PC's in station and we just don't have that type of budget, even when discounted, for software.
Oh well, what the hell
I would think if you went with StarOffice and paid some support fees you could probably get Sun to figure it all out and implement it for way less than the M$ alternative. My company has been using OpenOffice/StarOffice for years and we have nary a problem. Basically the only noticeable difference is the Macro language. Like others have said, with a click of a button you can export to PDF and all formatting compatibility issues disappear.
You must edit the OOo registry as shown here: http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?p=10 5239
In windows, if you want users to be able to log in to mutliple desktops\terminals with local profiles and receive default registry settings for an application, you must manage the default user registry key on the target desktops (which a new user would use as a template to generate a new profile when logging on with a local profile on that particular machine for the first time). Alternately, you can use the Flex Profile Kit from Login Consultants (free as in no dough) found here: http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?ID= 315. With this, you use mandatory profiles as the default profile and then use a modified version of the ork2k3 tool proflwiz.exe to copy the registry keys you wish to save to an OPS file in the user's home folder. Hence, the registry settings the user needs are saved and persist across machines. Alternately, you can design a Group Policy ADM file to push down the registry changes you require for your default application files. The flex profile solution is far better, in my opinion.
Flex profiles lets you do the roaming profile thing without the headaches of roaming profiles. With it you can "Roam" users settings (reg keys and files) without some of the problems associated with roaming profiles.
You can find it at http://www.loginconsultants.nl/ and it's free (I have no association with these guys other than using the kit).
OpenOffice works fine for my company - no one seems to notice we're not using Word except that we seem to get things done much faster than people using Word. There are some great features in OpenOffice. For example, the way OpenOffice does mini-spreadsheets complete with auto-updating graphs right inside Writer is great.
:>
Small companies just can't afford Office - and really have no need to. That extra 500 bucks a computer is used on....more computers, or god forbid, profitability.
We're not suffering from "naggling technical issues" whatever those are.
There's a "presets" directory, that contains the default settings. I suspect you could configure your account "just so", copy it over the preset dir, and get what you need.
.CAB files that the OOo install .exe unpacks, and create your own zip/tar/whatever.
You'd actually want to change the contents of the
Here's a thought:
Pay someone else to do it. You're saving $65k, right? Give a (small) portion of that cash to someone familiar with OOo, and have them code the changes that you're after.
Just because it's free software doesn't mean that it's afraid of money. Go ahead and buy the features you need.
Kid-proof tablet..
Are you nuts? Do you really think you're going to get a whole organization to run in that fashion? Do you think end users are going to keep up with thumb drives and live CDs?
I'm not going to belittle you, but that has to be the least feasible idea that I've ever run across as a suggestion for something like this. If the poster really wanted to do it properly, they'd implement roaming profiles, or at the very least, a mounted network share that synchronized at logout. If that was configured correctly, the operation of such a setup would be transparent to any program that accesses files from those directories.
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
65k for how many licenses of Office?
Also, most project managers speak in terms of seats/users, not network size when discussing software roll-outs for client apps. So it's specious to say you're rolling out a client app on a medium sized network and expecting people to make the connection between network size and user-base.
I'm not flaming, I'm just filling in some logistical gaps you're going to encounter using the wrong lingo.
I'm going to assume medium sized network translates to roughly under 500 licenses.
Have you had a user-base test out OO yet? Do you know if there will be any user acceptance? If users don't accept your 'free roll-out' you will run into rampant pirating of MS licenses. Try using the least technically apt people and the most technically apt users for a test base. If it works for both, you'll get a solid acceptance level.
Remember, client apps are to make work smoother for users, not harder and frankly OO is not intuitive at all.
Did this come up outside of a budget scope? Did you not plan out a budget for end-user applications? Or is this a knee-jerk reaction to feel cool when talking with other techies?
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
1. install OO in workstations
2. buy:
* big whiteboard - $35
* whiteboard marker - $5
3. then write the instructions on the white board on how to configure OO
total expenses: $40
These same problems affect different versions of MS Office too. A complex word document written in Office 97 or 2000 can look completely different in Word 2003.
Best method: judge for yourself. Go to Microsoft.com, download all their complex Powerpoint presentations from the MS Office center. See if any don't display perfectly in OpenOffice 2.
If you're at a customer site with your own (normal) laptop then you already have the appropriate settings, unless it's your first use of the laptop.
Perhaps for those folks that roam natively (CEOs, sales folks, etc.) the thumb drive solution may work well. For everyone else, it's a way to carry porn home from your super-fast work connection, and something else to lose or break.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
How does Novell do ALL of its documents? OO.o 1.1 (moving to 2.0). Accounting included? Yuppers. Any hiccups yet? Not that I know of (VP @ Novell).
Yeah, that will work great when I am in the field at a customer site with no internet access... what else ya got?
fetch config from version control (e.g. CVS), if changed while disconnected, commit to version control when network connection established again
Open Office 2.0/StarOffice8 do not make it easy to configure defaults. The first time any user opens the program on a given computer they are greeted with a EULA, and series of configuration screens. File save formats will default to OpenDoc. One possible solution is to use scripting to copy the setup.xcu file from a fully configured user to the profile of each user. This approach turns out to be rather clumsy. A solution that works involves modifying the installation files so that OO2/StarOffice8 sets up and configures each user with the desired defaults.
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.cab files in the distribution. Doing so will eliminate the need for a post-installation script.
.
I posted one possible solution to the OpenOffice.org forum on November 9th. Link here:
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.
The following is for Windows System admins who want to maintain their sanity while transitioning users from MS Office to OpenOffice2 or StarOffice8. The idea is to introduce OO/Star without requiring an immediate switch to a new document format and to allow users to begin using OO2 or StarOffice8 without having to accept a license agreement and answer questions they may not know how to answer.
Depending whether you are using StarOffice8 or OpenOffice.org 2.0 - Do the following on workstation after a a fresh installation of OO2 or StarOffice8::
Add these lines to "C:\Program Files\Sun\StarOffice 8\share\registry\data\org\openoffice\Setup.xcu" at line 38:
((OR))
Add these lines to "C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.0\share\registry\data\org\openoffice\Setup.xcu" at line 38:
<prop oor:name="LicenseAcceptDate" oor:type="xs:string">
<value>2005-11-05T18:30:11
</prop>
<prop oor:name="FirstStartWizardCompleted" oor:type="xs:boolean">
<value>true</value>
</pr
In C:\Program Files\Sun\StarOffice 8\share\registry\modules\org\openoffice\Setup
((
In C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.0\share\registry\modules\org\openoffice\Setup
Locate file: Setup-calc.xcu
Replace " calc8" with "MS Excel 97"
Locate file: Setup-impress.xcu
Replace " impress8" with " MS PowerPoint 97"
Locate file: Setup-writer.xcu
Replace "writerglobal8" with " MS Word 97" **see note below**
Replace "writer8" with " MS Word 97"
After this is done, I suggest storing the modified files with the OO/StarOffice8
installation (CD, Network share etc.). Write a post-installation batch file
to replace these files on target computers immediately after installation.
You may want to change out the respective files in the installation
The result is that all users of the target computer (new and existing) will
not be prompted for user information on first use and will have the
default file format set for compatibility with Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP.
(This does not prevent the user from changing the default file save format
any time she chooses)
Then go forth - install and evangelize!
Sell your users on the fact that OO/StarOffice8 is an *upgrade* from MS office.
After about a year, go back and switch to OpenDoc and the battle is won.
**note**
I still have lingering questions about changing the ext.GlobalDocument
ooSetupFactoryDefaultFilter from "writerglobal8" to "MS Word 97.
It would be good for someone to test this to see if it is the right
thing to do.
I have successfully deployed OOo onto several of my companies computers. It works great. Things are going really well and without any hitches.
The only bone I have to pick is that OOo doesn't have an email client as such. So, its not really a COMPLETE office suite. And Thunderbird and the rest are too far behind Outlook+Exchange for any OSS solution to be viable on a business desktop. Eccept for mabey Zimbra (in the future).
So the trick is this: when you edit a .DOC file with OOo, convert it to the OOo format (.sxw) as soon as you start. Make sure the format is OK. Keep the file in .sxw format inside the company.
When you need to interface with the outside world, publish the .DOC by saving in this format if needed. If you don't need outside people to actually edit the document, export it from OOo as a PDF, which is read-only, and publish the PDF instead of the DOC.
And remember to edit only the .sxw file.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Hi,
n g/LDAP.xcu.sample /share/registry/ldap/*attr.map
I just finished a StarOffice 8 deployment. At least some subset of the options can come from LDAP --- so I assume OpenOffice.org 2.0 could do it too.
See.../share/registry/data/org/openoffice/somethi
and
I think you should be able to find the preference for default file type and then populate the AD with a dn to hold the setting. We just use it to deploy name/phone/address out of ou=People so that fax coversheets autopopulate, but I don't see why it wouldn't work for other settings.
Now, the LDAP support might only be in StarOffice, but based on the pathname I don't think it is. There is also the option of simply modifying the default preferences in the registry and then either making a new installer or propegating the changed registry file (this is openoffice's registry, not windows) with a script, even if it is a login script.
I do have to ask though: why no roaming profiles? That seems a wee odd.
Do keep in mind that while 2.0 is good for office compatibility, it's not perfect. It might make more sense to save in open document, and then export to PDF to send to people, or simple save as office format for when you save externally. If it's a regulatory thing (SOX), then OpenDocument should be sufficient.
I'd tell you, but then I'd have to bill you...
Wow. Ask Slashdot has become the place for those who can't/won't do research to have the Slashdot crowd figure out the heavy lifting for them.
... you're dispensing valuable knowledge to a person who may have the job you could have, since he/she doesn't know as much as you.
Think about this, folks
Yes but 2000 -> 2003 and 2003 -> 2000 will work almost 100% of the time. Your way overstating any incompatibilities between recent versions of Office. OO.org on the other hand doesn't work 100% the vast majority of the time. Anything more than basic text documents simply doesn't translate well. You'll get the full text alright, just not spaced and formatted correctly. If you don't mind things like docs constantly changing from 2 to 3 pages then fine use OO.org to work with Word docs. Otherwise it should be avoided.
I'm like a broken record saying this but if you need to constantly open, and then work on, and then resend word docs then you don't want OO.org. Its a fine office suite on its own but not if you have to always deal with word docs. Organizations that don't have to deal with word docs constantly should take advantage of OO.org though. They are lucky to have such a nice free alternative to MS Office available.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
It probably depends on the level of dependancy on 'advanced' features of MS Office... most companies I think have much less dependancy than they might think. For us, we simply phased OO in. 100% of the desktops had OO installed. 98% had Office uninstalled. Sure we could have left existing Office installs intact indefinately, but by standardizing we ensured that internally everyone was on the same version of OO. (getting rid of the myriad of various office version conflicts and also ensuring there wasn't any silliness where users with Office refused to use OO and users with OO felt like second class citizens or some other nonsense. For all internal documents we use OO. People adapted pretty quick. A few of our internal documents had issues, We cleaned them up, and there hasn't been an issue in months. We do get significant inbound correspondance in Excel/Word and even PP, but these are simple documents that OO handles flawlessly. And even if there were the odd formatting hiccup it wouldn't matter, we're not 'publishing' them, just getting information from them. (Purchase Orders, reports, etc). For outbound correspondance where we might want to send someone a word or excel document... we just don't... we settled on PDF a long time ago. Our pdf requirements are simple and easily met by free pdf creation software (ie not Acrobat). We do not require our customers have proprietary software. This has worked very well for us. Very occasionally we *are* required to deal with a large complex MS office file from a customer that OO just chokes on. No biggie, we have a couple units with MS Office on them, for just that purpose. So we only need 2 licenses of MS Office vs 150. Most of the use they see is for 'powerpoint' crap that vendors will send as 'training materials'... we just blast these through one of the "MS office" stations into pdf and distribute the pdf version. (Alternatively we could install the free powerpoint viewer from MS, but I don't see an advantage to that. Overall, for us, stability (by getting rid of the multiple versions of MS Office) has actually improved. Occasionally
1. Group standards. E.g. install and setup OOo once and install it the same everywhere else [e.g. disk image].
or my fav
2. Use LaTeX and be fucking done with.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I use Openoffice 2.0 on my computer and be advised that I faced serious compatibility issues when editing certain Microsoft Word (Office XP) files in Openoffice writer.
These files were edited using the "Track changes" option in MS Office, that allows you to automatically mark changes that you have made to the file. Openoffice simply does not understand such a file and loads it without the accompanying change tracking information.
Admiteddly, I liked OpenOffice at first and thought that MS Office could finally be replaced. However, several experiences (problems with huge loading time, slowing down the PC, OpenDocument format not popular etc.), including the above mentioned one, have forced me back to MS Office, and my personal conclusion is that MS Office has a lot more features and is much better as a regular word processing app. I hate paying Microsoft, but in this case, they take the cake. I'll have to wait for Oo3.
PS : The only OO features that I noticed MS does not have, are the ability to render equations and make PDFs. However, MS Office + MathType + Adobe Acrobat Prof./any free PDF renderer can take care of that.
Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
if you're a moderate sized business, i'd imagine you've got 10 people in your IT department that are working on this problem. say their salaries are $40,000 each. since a solution is obviously not overnight, if it takes you 2 months to convert to openoffice, and we'll forget the time that it'll take to train people on the differences, it will cost your company $66k in labor in time spent converting it, and that's a modest figure.
$65k for office 2003 doesn't sound too bad, considering rollout is usually quick and painless.
just playing the devils advocate.
is this. /home/docs for all users, and launch OOo.
1.Simply install OOo on a Linux box.
2.Install Cygwin-X on all systems in the office network.
3. Customise the Startxwin batch file to set the DISPLAY variable and xhost + (Office Server), and ssh -l (username) to the Linux box without prompting for password.
4. On the Linux box - edit the user's profile to mount his desktop's 'Doc' folder, say
5. Done.
Advantages:
1. No need to install anything on the desktops - except Cygwin-X, that is.
2. For road warrors, a local instln to edit on the road (files are created on the local drive remember?).
3. If Step 4 is removed for 90% users, interesting apps like sharing Office files, managing them in a central location for quick backup etc. is easily achieved.
4. Easy roadmap to Groupware applications.
5. Concept easily extend for apps like Opera and Gaim for all desktops without exposing the desktop.
Enjoy!
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
We don't use them either, they cause more problems than they solve. But we wanted a solution where a user could just up and move to another machine and all of their settings are basically there.
.prf file to setup Outlook to pull their mailbox from our exchange server. Besides that, there isn't too much of anything our employees need that is "customized" between profiles on a particular system.
I built a GPO that runs a script that will check if the local profile has been "set-up". It does this by: First, checking to see if a version of Office is installed. Then it will check to see if there is a default Outlook profile. If no, the script assumes the profile is new and sets up printers based on domain group membership and runs a
I guess my point is, if M$'s version of "roaming" profiles doesn't suit your needs, make a different version of a roaming profile.
"When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you." --leonstryker
I have a number of thin clients in publica areas here at our school and have been using OOo since before 1.0. Before 2.0 it was EXTREMELY painful but things are better now.
Our user folder drive letter is: U:. When I create a default profile for the server, I go into Tools/Options/Paths and set that as the default drive for 'My Documents' and 'Backups'. Works like a charm.
Anything else that points directly to my default user's information gets redirected. Like temporary files go to C:\Temp.
Been running like this under the 1.9 beta / 2.0 code for four months now - no problems. It runs WAY better now than it did in previous versions under TS.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
If that were the case, then they should send out everything as PDF, not as MS-Proprietary-whatever-format that changes even when using various versions of MS-Office.
I'm just going to completely ignore the entire question of whether Microsoft or OO is better and just say that sending out files in Word format (or OO format) is crazy.
Word/OO format is intended for local storage or collaboration (though both rather suck at this -- you still can't edit a document while someone else is working with it and have changes automerged). PDF is intended for publication purposes.
Look at the drawbacks of Word format:
* Macro viruses. Yes, there are kludges to try to fix the problem, like virus scanners, but ultimately you're using a format that can contain active content when there's no reason to do so.
* Costs money to read. Okay, most users will have Microsoft Office (though if they bought, say, a low-priced Dell, they may have an alternative productivity software package). However, there are still people out there who just don't have it.
* Not cross-platform. Okay, again, most people probably don't care whether or not some Linux or BSD or whatever user is inconvenienced. It still irritates some chunk of people.
* Upgrade treadmill. Documents written with a different of Word may not display correctly in your copy. Not the case for PDF.
* Prints correctly. When you render something to PDF, you know what it's going to look like. Everywhere. Not true for Word.
* May leak information. Word (AFAIK) has no "Sanitize" command that strips all extraneous information from a file. All kinds of stuff gets jammed in Word files -- on the Mac, it used to pick up random blocks from the disk due to a bug of one sort or another. History information (I read about one incident where a secretary would always use another, similar document as a template for the next document she was writing. This was not good when sending out bids), information about who wrote what when in the document, etc.
Okay, if you really need to collaborate on authoring a document with a random Internet user, you may just need to use Word. Still, Word is used in a lot of places that it isn't remotely adapted to.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Rule 1 at /.
I thought the same thing. I needed to write an important document, which would be passed around with MS Word's change tracking, comments, etc. I reluctantly used MS Office 2003 to generate the monstrosity & it was a nightmare getting the document to work with a copy of Office 97 that a colleague was using. I tried exporting it in all of the previous versions of the DOC format that MS Office 2003 let me choose from. No luck. I ended up opening it in OO.o Writer. It was slow. There was some stuff that wasn't ideal. But it opened. And, better, when I saved it, it opened & looked good in Office 2003 AND Office 97.
I primarily use abiword and OO.o writer on linux, so this might be a case of PEBKAC.
However, I've seen this sort of thing before--OO.o will often struggle opening a file, but typically once I write a file with it, it CAN be read by both OO.o and MS Word.
I'm guessing that wouldn't be an option (live CD I mean) - he mentions MS Office and roaming profiles, which implies Windows, for which live CDs are not available.
I think the Windows Environment is whats causing the main problem here.
If you've got a lot of people moving around on a normal basis, it sounds like a call center environment. For this type of thing, its better to have (at least in my opinion) Thin Clients since a users profile stays in one place. That and you don't have to worry about each machine when something happens.
It may not address your specific problem so much, but still be of interest for you:
The Citiy of Vienna is currently making a partial "soft" shift to OSS on the workplace, using a selfdeveloped debian-based distribution called Wienux (Wien is the german name for Vienna) that also includes Open Office.
Open Office is also beeing used on workplaces still using Windows and users are encouraged - but not forced - to switch to OO.
See more at: http://www.wien.gv.at/ma14/oss.html.
It's mostly German, but some of the Information is available in English too.
Just pull the config from the registry when they log out, or log in. Maybe you can configure it so the changes are saved when you close OpenOffice. Then simple apply the registry changes when the user log-in at another workstation using the log-in script.
You probably have to identify which keys and so to save but it should be doable.
The standard is not "perfect compatibility" but "at least as good as Microsoft Office".
I have a real live version of MS Office, current patches and all, and I have to use StarOffice to exchange files with one of my customers, because he also runs MS Office, and if we try to exchange files using MS Office on both sides, the files get mangled horribly. StarOffice does what we want.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
The java tip is a good one since the java slowdown is apparently much larger in 2.0 as compared to earlier versions. In earlier versions, you'd get faster startup times by increasing the memory that OOo uses by default. You can do this in OOo 2.0 as well, and it will help with startup times also. Someone recently blogged about the tremendous amount of memory OOo is using. But the memory settings in the options menu are set conservatively. If you have the memory to spare, increasing the settings allowing OOo to use more memory will get you noticeably faster start times.
Tools -> options -> OO.org -> memory -> Graphics cache -> Use for OO.org (increase this one, try increasing 8 mb at a time, experiment, don't remember the default setting). - Graphics Cache -> Memory per object (try increasing this one also, it is set low, so try doubling, then adding 4-8 mb, first setting above should give better results).
Don't forget that once started and shut down, subsequent startup of OOo will be faster because some processes are still running or in memory. You'll need a reboot for windows, and for you GNU/Linux users, you'll either need a reboot or for you individuals that only reboot during blue moons, you'll need to wait a few hours or days depending on usage for most of OOo to clear out before you can reliably test startup times.
While OOo quickstart process running in the background allows OOo to startup faster, it also uses up resources, so I don't run it since I don't use OOo that much. If you are a regular office user and can spare the resources (not much but on some systems every bit counts), then by all means use the quickstarter.
It's a shame what Sun has done to OOo because they feel the need to push that pos java on us. That's the tradeoff to using a FOSS suite. Luckily Debian systems don't install java by default, and I haven't had luck in getting it to work on my server, so neither OOo nor the web browsers have java functionality (or its slowness) so it isn't a big issue. The only complaint I've had on the lack of java is the inability to do speed tests at third party sites when troubleshooting voip or connectivity issues.
OpenOffice memory/startup tips: here
and the blog about the memory hog that OOo is:
here
If you're running on a non-Windows OS, do you have the Microsoft fonts loaded? If not, you should try that as a first step to solve the problem you describe above.
Also, if you change your printer driver in Windows and the resolution changes, Office will reformat your documents anyway. OO.org won't do that; what's on a single page on one person's computer will stay on a single page on anyone else's (though using PDF is the most reliable way to guarantee WYSIWYG anywhere).
" I think the Windows Environment is whats causing the main problem here."
Really, I thought it was the "no internet access" part that was causing the problem.
How do thin clients work out when there's no network connection present?
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
My solution? Portable OpenOffice!
In my case I carry it around with my keys on a USB drive but you could just as well put it on a network drive that your users can access. I also carry:
- Portable Firefox
- Portable Thunderbird
- Portable NVU
- Portable SunBird
- Portable Gaim
- Portable OpenOffice
Creating a new instance with all the settings you want becomes very easy at this point.. just copy the whole directory to a new one! -JDAsk Sun about StarOffice and about the centralized configuration solution. It's part of the StarOffice Enterprise Edition.
Cant you see that his "ask slashdot" is just a way to scare Microsoft and get a better deal?
The next time a MS representative comes around and offers them an upgrade for 65K
He answers: "But I can get that for free!"
They offer him a better price
Deal.
Solved problem, long time ago.
Sync a laptop's home dir with the network drive. Similar can be accomplished pretty trivially with rsync or any number of syncronization systems, yup it can be easily fully automated, no brain involved as well.
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/
Deleted
While the suggestion is crazy (to use live cds to get around this problem), you're wrong about Windows and Live CDs. You'd still need a windows licence, and might or might not be allowed to do this, depending on your juridictions take on silly EULAs etc, but:
And finally something went wrong and your work wasn't published? Is it yours still or do they have exclusive rights?
If you can/may -- and if you want -- I suggest you release it thru a Creative Commons license (something akin to GPL for docs) so that many benefit from your work. Since it's your thesis I guess you could do it...
Just an idea...
badly
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Thou art Dumb!, yea verily!
Do you hire a mechanic full time, 40 hrs a week because you own a car? No?
Gee why not? You mean the car works most of the time and you only hire a mechanic when it
actually needs work done on it?
Oh, gee. Perhaps the same approach would for OOo?
"Hey, I got a problem here, Can you fix it? "
"Sure buddy, 3 hours work, it'll cost you $300, and I can have it done by next Tuesday."
"Gee, I really need it done immediately."
"OK. $600 and I'll do it tonight, after hours."
"hmm," (looks over shoulder at $65,000.00 in the closet), "Ok. Deal."
And since when does 'no Internet' mean it is equal 'no network'?
Ever heard of IPX/SPX? How about companies that do not offer Internet access, but have a IP-enabled LAN?
Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
Just stick with Office 97/2000/2002
Cheap, fully compatibility, and the features missing in 2003 are almost non-existant if you don't use sharepoint. Office 2000 is still on something like 65% of all corporate desktops worldwide according to microsoft.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I believe he was talking about a remote site. Each distinct location would have a functioning LAN, obviously. It's the link between the locations that's in question. That link would most likely be achieved by using an ISP.
Now accepting PayPal donations!
The original poster is considering using OO to save money. The cost of thumb dries (even in bulk) will be $15/piece. Formatting, distribution, training and replacing lost drives will add another $20 to $30 per user. Add in the cost of a couple of snapped off USB ports when someone whacks the PC with the thumb drive in it, and you're pretty close to the cost of just buying office.
He said live distribution, as in: on the thumb drive. Additionally, thumb drives are very easy to keep up with. Tell them to attach it to their key chain. It won't go anywhere then.
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
And a reflection of mine as well. I reckon about 70-80% of the Excel spreadsheets I see are purely documentation--without a single formula containing more than a single number or date. I recently received directions to a hotel in a spreadsheet! There are those for whom Excel is the right tool, but most can do all their spreadsheeting in any spreadsheet program at all.
you may want to check into citrix servers to be able to run one licensed version of your 2003 office, without having to run it on every pc, then each user has their own account on that server that when they web log into they keep, sort of same as a windows network environment, but more advanced as it has integrated vpn technology for outside the office(home users)...check into it!
L.A.
Where do I get openofficeorg.msi ?
Use WordPerfect. It saves to .doc and pdf. You can even change the UI to emulate the Word interface. Plus you will get support when you need it.
Don't forget to make it hidden!
We don't want users seeing a directory and saying: "I don't use that! DELETE! Hey, why doesn't openoffice work?"
... and then users will start leaving their keys attatched to the USB ports along with their thumb drives.
// Dumps core here
Y'know I was asked to fix a machine once where this fool had gone through his windoze directory like that... when I opened a config file and it asked me where it could find notepad, I promptly called him an idiot and fdisked the machine before doing a full reinstall.
Many large organizations view any portable media as a large security hole and are bring tools that bar removable media on line. So that is probably a non-starter.
Thou art Dumb!, yea verily!
Do you hire a mechanic full time, 40 hrs a week because you own a car? No?
Gee why not? You mean the car works most of the time and you only hire a mechanic when it
actually needs work done on it?
Oh, gee. Perhaps the same approach would for OOo?
"Hey, I got a problem here, Can you fix it? "
"Sure buddy, 3 hours work, it'll cost you $300, and I can have it done by next Tuesday."
"Gee, I really need it done immediately."
"OK. $600 and I'll do it tonight, after hours."
"hmm," (looks over shoulder at $65,000.00 in the closet), "Ok. Deal."
the satisfaction of not giving Bill G. more money ... priceless.
(if you buy the whiteboard and marker using a Mastercard, of course)
You've got the source code. Use it.
*** Don't be dull.***
Versiera Gateway is a product we use http://www.blue-dot.ca/ and it dynamically configures all user settings we designate as necessary including .INI files, Outlook, SQL settings, etc. on the fly as the user signs in. The system is very useful for migration projects and allowing users to move from PC to PC as all their settings are dynamically configured during logon without any delays. The system reliese on agents tracking of settings (if they change) that we specify. During the last migration with new images being deplyed this made the work a snap.
when their car is stolen they'll soon learn ;)
which is totally what she said
If I am understanding the original poster, they have users that move around a lot. They want it so everything comes up as company set default everytime so there is no confusion.
Well you could always try what we do. Setup the computers as company specs, set everything as you need/want them. Put in a mapped drive for storage. Then install Deep Freeze http://www.faronics.com/index.asp/.
This will ensure after every reboot the computer is back to the way it was. The network mapped drive is used for all their document storage/whatever storage. It took a bit to educate our employee's to not save anything to the desktop, as after the next reboot its gone.
Hope this helps.
I created a Kixtart Net install script to rollout OpenOffice.org 2.0 - The requirements are simply a Domain Admin Account and the ability to access the Default Administrative Shares that Windows automatically creates.
You can Download it at
http://www.pcc-services.com/kixtart/scripts.html
For the default saving into Office filetypes - All of the user settings are saved in XML files and you can edit these files before you roll-out OpenOffice.org. To do this simply adjust the settings on a separate machine, find out what file was modified to see what you need to change in the default installation. For instance I created a menu item for my script to add a "From Gallery" option to the "Insert - Picture" Menu.
You have multiple workable solutions in this area. Here are the most common used by my clients:
1. Where clients are roaming one building with lots of bandwidth, install ALL apps on their network drives. Upon logging in from ANY PC in the organization, Office and every other app settings can come from the network. Actually, you have a choice of running the entire app from the network, or just critical settings.
If bandwidth is an issue, just put the settings on the LAN and the apps of the PCs.
If, (more likely) individual users keep messing with local settings and apps, fewer headaches may result by going 100% LAN.
2. Where remote connections are required, both Citrix and MS/Terminal server are great options.
My wife is 150 miles from her office and accesses MS Office and other apps all via Terminal Services.
In both of the above approaches, IT can also do nightly backups and scan for viruses, malware, and forbidden files.
If a user's PC crashes, just roll out a pre-configured desktop from the closet, boot, and the user can be quickly back in business.
In other words, drive C: is used only for caching and logging in to the network.
Where security and performance start to get crazy, consider cheap or rack PCs dedicated to individual users. Whether you use MS's remote facility, PcAnywhere, Terminal Server, Citrix, etc., the idea is that the user can remotely access their computer-room PC from any desktop and even from home.
Before you pooh-pooh PcAnywhere as out-of-date, take some time to appreciate the multiple levels of authentication and encryption it offers.
You can add a bunch of technologies to the above mix. VM Ware (and similar OS shells) can isolate individual apps to individual copies of the OS. This is a great way to give users MS Office in one window and OO in another. You can also add any number of VPN, tunneling, encryption, and any number of software, hardware, and other authentication approaches depending on the requirements of your environment. I have been exposed to a number of military and pharma environments, and most can be supported using almost any of the remote approaches.
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
Spend the $65k to get software that works the way you want it to, rather than forcing your users to work extra hard just to get their jobs done. How much money is wasted by all of your users having to tweak settings constantly? How much time and money is wasted by every user that calls you to help walk them through the process when they move to a new computer? How about when you leave and whatever kluge you implement has to be supported? How about when they don't get a perfect rendition of that Word file the outside customer sent them? Worse, how 'bout when the salesmen call to say "I sent my customer a Write document, and they said they could barely read it when they opened it in Word!?"
Yes, they're the typical MS-favorable rhetoric, but they're also valid points and questions that need answering. I understand we're more than likely talking less than 300 users ($65k/$300 per license=260 users), but still...I've supported networks that small (that's not a medium-sized network), and $65k so I can move on to the next problem is a mighty small price to pay...
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
I agree with you, and this is how I usually try to run things at home. Receive it in .doc, convert it to .odt, then if I need to send it out convert it back to a .doc. It's works well enough, but I was just thinking, would it be possible to have a simple program or script that does the conversion for you, but transparently.
What I mean is, could you somehow add functionality to your email and web browser so that all incoming files in email and from webpages are automatically converted from .doc to .odt, then saved to your hard disk. Then when you try to send an email / upload a document (or even burn to a CD or copy to a USB drive?), it will ask if you want to convert it to MS Office format.
As it is, I usually end up with two copies of every document lying around... one in the MS Office format, and one in the Open Document format. Unfortunately sometimes I make the mistake of editing different versions and having some changes in each but not in both... and it just gets confusing.
Could you make some sort of script / plugin that would do the conversion for you in common places where you take in or send out files (I'm thinking mostly email).
Just a thought...
-Jason
Oh. You haven't seen the bucket of bolts that OO.o is. But I'll forgive that. Let's just make an even harder business case than the one where we farm it out to India.
"Yes Sir. Whenever we have a problem, we'll go around searching for someone who is free to work on this short term to fix the problem. And capable. And willing to accept sums of money as small as $600."
We're a medical clinic with offices in two cities. We run a thin client setup. We've got 15 terminals and 13 printers connected to a quad 500MHz (w 2MB cache/processor) PIII Xeon with 2GB RAM. Certainly not a powerhouse by today's standards. We've been using this system for over 5 years now.
:-)
:-)
We use OpenOffice.org extensively as well as PDF, Firefox, Evolution, etc. Everything works really well. We've seen the same issues that you describe although for us, it has never really had a big impact. A runaway process might tie up one CPU, but the others keep processing just fine.
The benefits of thin clients far outweigh the issues you raised. You didn't say whether your server was SMP so I assume it was a single CPU. You might want to re-evaluate your decision to go local. Check out the cost of a good multi-core server vs the cost of multiple local machines. I think you're trying to solve your problem the wrong way.
When we upgrade it'll be to a multi-core Opteron.
Are your clients all in the same city, or do they connect remotely to the server. If so, and some of the clients are remote, how do you deal with latency? We have found VNC to be a bit laggy, so I'm assuming running a thin client across the Internet would also lag a bit.
Your in a Novell environment so use Zenworks to push down the necessary settings when the users log in using the built in support for volatile users, etc.
l ?sourceidint=hp_products_zen
http://www.novell.com/products/zenworks/index.htm
Being a small house without a lot of support staff Zenworks can help stramline your support system with imaging support, snapshot(install) support, group policy support, application distribution, and much more.
windows group policy editor doesnt seem to allow windows profiles larger than 30MB (including registry, because exlude registry doesnt seem to work either). i wish it did.. anyone know how to raise it a bit please, i want something like 50-100MB
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
I did a versy unscientific test on MacOSX. I ran NeoOffice normally and on box it took me 1 minute and 15 seconds to start. I went under Apple+Q to quit, and I looked under `ps aux` | grep "Neo" to see if there was another process running (there was none). I restarted w/o Java enabled and it started in 29 seconds!!!
My biggest complaint in the office has been lifted!
Thank you so much!
- Mick
Anyone know how to get rid of the hideously fugly Office-styled toolbar shading? I hates it with a vengeance. And there doesn't appear to be an off switch. ...Bah.
Goten Xiao
Sun has some deployment plans and tools. You should look into StarOffice 8 Enterprise Edition. I've read you can get license costs down to $25 a license. It might be worth it for the extra support. Here are some links that might be helpful. http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/enterp rises.jsp
http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/StarOf fice8EE_ds.pdf
With the USB keys, I can see loads of broken USB ports in an entire organization as people plug and unplug those guys daily. Not only that, but many organizations have banned USB keys because of concerns such as industrial espionage. And considering the price of one needed to hold a decent live distro, that's not something I, were I an IT manager, would even consider handing out to everyone in an org.
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
Just run the entire thing off of a thumb drive or live distribution that they can use anywhere they go that mounts your netdrive ;)
Are you nuts? Do you really think you're going to get a whole organization to run in that fashion? Do you think end users are going to keep up with thumb drives and live CDs?
More to the point, if the network security policy of the client organisation bans the use of "thumb" drives etc. you're stuffed. (As several of my client companies do. I often carry a hand-held computer with a serial cable and a terminal emulator because it's more reliable than floppies these days.)
A good reason for doing this is to ensure that any data entering/ leaving the network goes through "sheepdip" computers. Another good reason is to stop the cow-orkers from downloading stuff on the work's internet charges and taking it home. Plenty of good reasons for doing it - see "diskless workstation" in the Jargon File.
Where did I put that copy of Petter's NT electronic crowbar http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ ? Oh, it's in my briefcase where it should be.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Yeah, I don't really understand the POINT of having a live distro. And I do understand the broken/forgotten aspect. Crap I don't know, just get some software hooked up to a database that automatically mounts their crap based on a thumb print (or even their user/pass).
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
Keep Windows machines to access broken, propietary formats.
Have a project to convert the old, propietary, broken formats to open formats.
Demand from your providers to use open formats to exchange information.
Convince your clients to use Open Formats. If you have the cloud to do so, force them. Otherwise keep a few Windows machines for old documents.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I have set up a medical office with five locations, each about 20 miles apart, and each has very limited bandwidth (ISDN). We run five servers, one per location. I run an rsync at night to bring all users $HOME to the master. I also run rsync on login and logout to copy the files that are different. This allows users to work in multiple locations and still have access to all of their files. The main application is telnet based and runs fine.
I would love to upgrade bandwidth and eliminate the need to rsync data, but the additional cost in doing so can not currently be justified.
I will also mention that we do run a mixed network of thin clients and windows boxes. In LTSP we use the MS extensions by default, this was done to try and eliminate the need to convert documents each time a user needed to send them outside the company. But as others have mentioned OO and MS do not always play nicely together.