After many hours of debugging with Microsoft support the system to install the Lync Client silently can be done with a SINGLE LINE command.  The steps to take are below. It should be an easy next step to put this as GPO installation since it is a simple command.

Comments appreciated. 

side question: Why is there no Lync 2013 or Lync Office 365 forum?

Basic steps to deploy Lync for users who own Office 365 E2 licenses, but dont have Office 365 E3, using Office Deployment tool. This also applies for other Office 365 service types where the full office suite download is not included.  In April 2015 This was impossible to find online and not know by the Lync support team.

Steps are:

1. Download the Office deployment tool from http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=36778 and extract it to a folder. For this example we will use the \\server\sharename location.

Extracting it creates a setup.exe file and it show a sample XML file.

2. Create XML file and give it a name such as LyncEntryRetail.xml

Note: The key is the productID that has to be the LyncEntryRetail. Other product IDs will download a version that needs another office 365 license. The productID LyncRetail needs an E3 license of Office 365.

<Configuration>

  <Add SourcePath="\\server\sharename" OfficeClientEdition="32" >

    <Product ID="LyncEntryRetail">

      <Language ID="en-us" />

    </Product>

  </Add> 

</Configuration>

3. From the folder where you extracted the Office deployment tool, run the following command on the command prompt to download the source files and store them on the shared drive:  (on single line)

Setup.exe /download LyncEntryRetail.xml   (This is the name of the XML file created above)

One can also run the same on a server share by using UNC path names such as  (on single line)

\\servername\sharename\Setup.exe /download \\servername\sharename\LyncEntryRetail.xml   (This is the name of the XML file created above)

4. Run the following command on the command prompt on a machine where you want to install the software: (on single line)

\\servername\sharename\Setup.exe /configure \\servername\sharename\LyncEntryRetail.xml   (This is the name of the XML file created above)

Once you are comfortable that it all works, you may want to edit the XML file if you want to have silent installation and add the following lines.

  <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" /> 

  <Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="1" /> 

Regards

Nice post, thanks!

That helped.

Cheers,

Al