Problems deploying Lync 2013 to Windows 7 clients

I am running into an interesting issue.  I have manually installed Lync on several systems in our office by just running the setup and walking through the installer prompts with out issue.  I have tried to make a silent automatic installer by running the setup.exe /admin command and setting up a .msp via the OCT.  The only things I have changed in the OCT is to put an organizational name in, under licensing and user interface accepting the license agreement and setting the display level to none, which checks supress modal.

I have checked under the Configure shortcuts section of OCT and all but the two Telementry shortcuts are marked Yes under the Installed column.

I save out of this and put the msp file in the x86 updates folder as I downloaded the 32bit Lync 2013 software.

If I manually install Lync on a computer by removing the MSP file from the update folder Lync installs fine.  If I remove Lync and install it silently with the msp file in the x86 updates folder after the install finishes I have shortcuts for Office 2013 Language Preferences and Office 2013 upload center but I do not have shortcuts to Lync 2013 or Lync Recording Manager in the start menu.  If I look under I do not see Lync anywhere under the Office folders.

I am trying to install this on a client running Win7 64bit.  I have a mix of 64bit and 32bit clients I ultimately will be deploying this to using SCCM 2012.  I have followed the guide here http://www.ronnipedersen.com/configmgr-2012-guides/ in setting up a SCCM deployment.  I get the same results if I install via the SCCM deployment or manually run setup.  If I include the OCT msp file it does not appear that the acutal application ever installs.

August 28th, 2014 3:10pm

Are you using the latest version of OCT? There were some isseues with lync and onedrive.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35554

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August 30th, 2014 7:49am

Thank you for the response, i downloaded the 32bit version of the new admin files and put them in the x86 admin folder and reran the OCT and tried to install with that by just running the setup.exe under the x86 folder.  The install ran silently but again it didnt acutally install the Lync application.  The shortcuts for Office 2013 Language Preferences and Office 2013 upload center show up but not for Lync 2013.

I dont know if this maters or not but this system does not have any other Office 2013 application installed.  We are running Office 2010 still.  I dont know if this maters as when I run the same setup.exe from the x86 folder with nothing in the update folder I get the manual install screens and Lync installs just fine via that method, its just when running with the OCT file in the uploads folder does it not fully install.

Again I am using the 32bit Lync only client media I am not using Office 2013 pro plus media.

September 1st, 2014 3:11pm

I figured out the issue.  I had to go into OCT and specify that Lync was to Run from Computer which added an (F) for Lync and then when I ran the setup.exe manually it ran silently and installed the application this time as it should.

I added the full path to the OCT file in the SCCM application and tested the deployment that way and it also installed the application silently this time.  It appears it was that I needed to get the updated /admin folder for the OCT to work although I wouldn't have thought that I would have had to tell OCT to run Lync from the PC I figured that would have been a default setting.

  • Marked as answer by AKlein Monday, September 01, 2014 7:52 PM
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September 1st, 2014 7:52pm

Hi AKlein,

I'm having the same issue, I think I have the OCT part right but I think I am missing from my SCCM application deployment, any help would be great? Steps?

September 8th, 2014 9:16pm

What I ended up doing was downloading the new admin files as directed and putting them in the admin folder under the x86 folder on the server where I put the install media.  Then i ran setup /admin from the x86 folder to launch the OCT.  I made my changes and under the "Set feature installation states" I set Microsoft Lync to "Run from My Computer" which put an [F] in front of it.  Then I saved my msp file to the x86/updates folder.

I used this guide http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/How-to-Deploying-Office-0f954e7f to then put the application in System Center Config Manager.  I used the lync.ww folder to select the msi instead of the folder  shown in the guide since I was doing Lync and of course at the uninstall put in setup.exe /uninstall Lync as the uninstall command.  I didn't mess with the requirements and I setup the deployment for devices vs users.

On the install command for the deployment type I have the following which seems to work better than not having the full path. 

Setup.exe /adminfile "\\server\share\Lync_2013\x86\updates\Custom.msp"  where the content location is \\server\share\Lync_2013\x86\

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September 9th, 2014 1:09pm

What I ended up doing was downloading the new admin files as directed and putting them in the admin folder under the x86 folder on the server where I put the install media.  Then i ran setup /admin from the x86 folder to launch the OCT.  I made my changes and under the "Set feature installation states" I set Microsoft Lync to "Run from My Computer" which put an [F] in front of it.  Then I saved my msp file to the x86/updates folder.

I used this guide http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/How-to-Deploying-Office-0f954e7f to then put the application in System Center Config Manager.  I used the lync.ww folder to select the msi instead of the folder  shown in the guide since I was doing Lync and of course at the uninstall put in setup.exe /uninstall Lync as the uninstall command.  I didn't mess with the requirements and I setup the deployment for devices vs users.

On the install command for the deployment type I have the following which seems to work better than not having the full path. 

Setup.exe /adminfile "\\server\share\Lync_2013\x86\updates\Custom.msp"  where the content location is \\server\share\Lync_2013\x86\

  • Proposed as answer by Justin Yaple Friday, March 06, 2015 3:16 PM
September 9th, 2014 1:09pm

Thanks.  I just ran into this issue too.  Using the admin files included with Lync no amount of tweaking the MSP would get Lync to actually install.  Even setting everything to "Run from My Computer" only a few of the components would install.

I did as you said and downloaded the new admin files then recreated my MSP file and everything works now.

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March 6th, 2015 10:19am

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