Deployment Guide - Next generation tools for Microsoft Office

Deployment Guide

Software Requirements

Ampler requires the following software components to be installed:

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 or newer (download link)
  • Microsoft Office 2007-2024 or Office 365

 

Deployment

Download the latest version of the Ampler installer. You can choose between an MSI or EXE installer depending on your needs:

The Ampler installer is a standard Windows Installer. You may use your preferred deployment tool, e.g. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), Group Policy Object (GPO) or System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to deploy Ampler.

 

The command to install Ampler depends on which products you want to enable. Make sure that you only enable products that you have a valid license for. If you enable a product that you don’t have a license for, Ampler will start a free trial for that product.

 

To install Ampler for PowerPoint use one of the following commands depending on whether you’re using the MSI or EXE installer:

AmplerInstaller.msi /qn ALLUSERS=1 ADDLOCAL=Core,PowerPoint
AmplerInstaller.exe /s /v"/qn ALLUSERS=1 ADDLOCAL=Core,PowerPoint"

 

To install Ampler for PowerPoint and Excel use one of the following commands:

AmplerInstaller.msi /qn ALLUSERS=1 ADDLOCAL=Core,PowerPoint,Excel
AmplerInstaller.exe /s /v"/qn ALLUSERS=1 ADDLOCAL=Core,PowerPoint,Excel"

 

To install Ampler for PowerPoint, Excel and Word use one of the following commands:

AmplerInstaller.msi /qn ALLUSERS=1 ADDLOCAL=Core,PowerPoint,Excel,Word
AmplerInstaller.exe /s /v"/qn ALLUSERS=1 ADDLOCAL=Core,PowerPoint,Excel,Word"

 

The parameters used in the above commands are:

  • /s instructs the installer to execute silently.
  • /v passes the parameters inside the quotes to the MSI. Please note, that there is no space after the /v.
  • /qn instructs the MSI to execute silently.
  • ALLUSERS=1 performs a per-machine installation. If this parameter is omitted, the installer will perform a per-user installation, i.e. Ampler will only be available to the user executing the command. Per-machine installations are recommended for company deployments.
  • ADDLOCAL=Core,PowerPoint,Word,Excel specifies that the Core feature as well as the PowerPoint, Word and Excel features should be installed. If this parameter is omitted, only the Core and PowerPoint features are installed.

To pre-activate Ampler for users, please download your license file from
your account. The license file contains the license itself and all of your company customizations.

The license file must be placed at this location:

  • For 32-bit Windows: %programfiles%\Ampler\Ampler.license
  • For 64-bit Windows: %programfiles(x86)%\Ampler\Ampler.license

If you have a network share that stores installation resources for your rollouts, you can distribute the license file using a command like the following:

copy /Y /V "\\my-network-share\Ampler\Ampler.license" "%programfiles(x86)%\Ampler\Ampler.license"

 

A note on certain deployment tools

SCCM

For SCCM it is recommended to create a custom detection rule such that it will correctly detect whether Ampler is already installed. This will prevent SCCM from trying to install Ampler when it is already installed.

It is recommended that you create a rule that checks the presence of this registry key:

  • For 32-bit Windows: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Ampler
  • For 64-bit Windows: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Ampler

It is not recommended to use the ProductCode to detect if Ampler is already installed. The reason is that the ProductCode is version specific, thus if Ampler auto-updates itself, then it will get a new ProductCode, and SCCM will then try to re-install Ampler, which will produce an error.

Furthermore, the ‘Install behavior’ should be set to ‘Install for system’.

Intune

For Microsoft Intune, the important part of the package setup is these three settings:

  • ‘App install context’ should always be ‘Device’
  • ‘Ignore app version’ should be set to the following:
    • If Ampler’s auto-update mechanism is enabled then set to ‘Yes’
    • If Ampler’s auto-update mechanism is disabled then set to ‘No’
  • ‘Command-line arguments’ should be set according to the description above, depending on which Office products you wish to activate Ampler in. Please leave out the name of the .exe/.msi.

Modify Ampler after deployment

If you wish to enable Ampler for another Office program after having deployed Ampler in your organization, you may use the PowerShell script below. The script assumes that Ampler is already installed on the computer on which it is being run. The script is useful if you have already deployed Ampler and then later expand your Ampler license to cover an additional Office program.

 
For example to enable Ampler for Word, use the following command in your deployment tool:

.\ModifyAmpler.ps1 -Enable Word

 

To disable Ampler for Word you can use the following command in your deployment tool:

.\ModifyAmpler.ps1 -Disable Word

 

 
ModifyAmpler.ps1

Param (
[Parameter(Mandatory=$false, HelpMessage="Specify which features to enable. Valid values are 'PowerPoint', 'Word', 'Excel' and 'Outlook'.")]
[ValidateSet('PowerPoint','Word','Excel','Outlook')]
[string]$Enable,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$false, HelpMessage="Specify which features to disable. Valid values are 'PowerPoint', 'Word', 'Excel' and 'Outlook'.")]
[ValidateSet('PowerPoint','Word','Excel','Outlook')]
[string]$Disable
)

 

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"

 

function EnableFeature($feature) {

 

if ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($feature)) {
return
}

 

$modify32 = gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match "Ampler" } | select ModifyPath
$modify64 = gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match "Ampler" } | select ModifyPath

 

$modify = ( &{ if ($modify32) { $modify32 } else { $modify64 } } )

 

$modify = $modify.ModifyPath -Replace "msiexec.exe", "" -Replace "/I", "" -Replace "/X", ""
$modify = $modify.Trim()

 

Start-Process "msiexec.exe" -Arg "/I $modify /qn ADDLOCAL=$feature" -Wait
Write-Host "Successfully enabled Ampler for $feature." -ForegroundColor Green

 

}

 

function DeletePathIfExists($path) {
if (Test-Path $path) {
Remove-Item -Path $path -Force -Recurse
}
}

 

function DisableFeature($feature) {

 

if ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($feature)) {
return
}

 

$uninstall32 = gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match "Ampler" } | select UninstallString
$uninstall64 = gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match "Ampler" } | select UninstallString

 

$uninstall = ( &{ if ($uninstall32) { $uninstall32 } else { $uninstall64 } } )

 

$uninstall = $uninstall.UninstallString -Replace "msiexec.exe", "" -Replace "/I", "" -Replace "/X", ""
$uninstall = $uninstall.Trim()

 

Start-Process "msiexec.exe" -Arg "/I $uninstall /qn REMOVE=$feature" -Wait

 

DeletePathIfExists "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Office\$feature\Addins\SmartTools"
DeletePathIfExists "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Office\$feature\Addins\SmartTools"
DeletePathIfExists "HKLM:\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Office\$feature\Addins\SmartTools"
DeletePathIfExists "$env:windir\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\Ampler\Data"

 

Write-Host "Successfully disabled Ampler for $feature." -ForegroundColor Green

 

}

 

EnableFeature $Enable
DisableFeature $Disable

 

 

Uninstallation

Upon normal uninstallation, Ampler will remove the installation directory and all registry keys. User settings files will, however, be kept. If you wish to uninstall and remove user settings files simultaneously, then please use the PowerShell script below.

 

UninstallAmpler.ps1 Full

Param (

[Parameter(Mandatory=$false, HelpMessage="Specify an uninstall mode. Valid values are 'Full'.")]

[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]

[ValidateSet('Full')]

[string]$Mode

)

 

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"

 

function Uninstall() {

 

$uninstall32 = gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match "Ampler" } | select UninstallString

$uninstall64 = gci "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" | foreach { gp $_.PSPath } | ? { $_ -match "Ampler" } | select UninstallString

 

$uninstall = ( &{ if ($uninstall32) { $uninstall32 } else { $uninstall64 } } )

 

$uninstall = $uninstall.UninstallString -Replace "msiexec.exe", "" -Replace "/I", "" -Replace "/X", ""

$uninstall = $uninstall.Trim()

 

Start-Process "msiexec.exe" -arg "/X $uninstall /qn" -Wait

 

}

 

function Remove-Tree($path) {

Remove-Item $path -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

 

if (Test-Path "$path\" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {

$folders = Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Directory -Force

foreach ($folder in $folders) {

Remove-Tree $folder.FullName

}

 

$files = Get-ChildItem -Path $path -File -Force

 

foreach ($file in $files) {

Remove-Item $file.FullName -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

}

 

if (Test-Path "$path\" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {

Remove-Item $path -Force -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

}

}

}

 

function Delete-Configuration() {

 

Remove-Tree "$env:APPDATA\Ampler"

Remove-Tree "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Ampler"

Remove-Tree "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\Ampler"

$programFiles = (${env:ProgramFiles(x86)}, ${env:ProgramFiles} -ne $null)[0]

Remove-Tree "$programFiles\Ampler"

}

 

Uninstall

 

if ($Mode -eq "Full") {

 

Delete-Configuration

 

}

 

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