Here’s some interesting issues that I came across with Office 2013 from Office 365. What happens in the case where you have a lot of PC’s which already have a previous version of Office (say 2010 in this case) already running Outlook connected to an old email account and you want to upgrade them all to Office 2013 with the latest version of Outlook?

I would have thought that the normal process you would do this via is simply to visit the downloads area in Office 365, download the Office 2013 software and upgrade the existing version on the desktop, retaining all the existing settings. At the very least I would have thought that it would have given you the option to do an upgrade or a side by side installation with the existing version of Office.

Turns out from my testing that this is in fact not the case. If you have an existing version of Office (in my test case Office 2010 Pro Plus) and you install Office 2013 office 365 it automatically does a side-by-side installation, leaving the existing version in place. This now means you have two versions of Office on that desktop.

Interestingly, it also means you have two versions of Outlook. This is a little different from the experience I blogged about a while back when I upgraded my desktop to Office 2013 via non-Office 365 means. I wanted two of every application including Outlook. What I got was two versions of everything EXCEPT Outlook! This Office 2013 via Office 365 installation is different in that it does provides two complete versions of everything on the system

Now, having two versions of most applications like Excel, Word, PowerPoint etc isn’t a big issue. The main issue is that by not doing an in place upgrade of Outlook means you have to manually re-establish the old email account and somehow migrate the emails into the new version. Not such an issue if the old account was already using Exchange, since the users mail is still stored on the server, but what about the case when the emails where POP3? All these emails are stored locally in a PST file in the OLD version of Outlook.

What I did find is that when I ran the new Outlook 2013 on the desktop it automatically picked up the account settings I had in the old Outlook (which were Exchange based) and set up Outlook 2013 using these. Thus, I could easily add the new Exchange Online account from Office 365 and see both accounts as shown above. With this I could simply drag and drop emails from the old account to the new account to do a migration if I wanted (although something like migrationwiz.com makes a lot more sense for Exchange accounts).

However, that doesn’t solve the problem for POP3 accounts. All you could really do is export to a PST in the old version of Outlook and then import this into Outlook 2013 and allow it to sync back to Exchange Online.

It would have been nice if Office 2013 from Office 365 had offered you the choice of doing an in place upgrade simply to save you the trouble of exporting old data and deleting the older version of Office. I am sure there is a reason why it doesn’t do this but I can’t think of why myself at the moment. However, when you have lots of machines to do in a network, with frustrated users standing over you wanting access to their stuff, that can take a very long time.

Now the next challenge with lots of machines is that you would appear to have to go to every machine and do the ‘click-to-run’ install of Office 2013 on each machine. Firstly, that is a lot of manual work and secondly that I believe creates a lot of downloads which can cause an issue if they are being done on multiple workstations at the same time.

It would be nice to be able to download a single copy of Office 2013 from Office 365 to a network share and then use that local copy to install on all workstations rather than running a download on each workstation.

Unfortunately, Office 365 uses the new streaming ‘click-to-run’ technology, which means no single download and install file. However, I believe I may have a solution.

Firstly visit the following site and download a trial of Office 2013 Pro Plus as a single download to a network share.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/jj192782.aspx

Install this trial onto all the machines on the network from the local file share.

If you run an Office 2013 application now and look at the information about the product you will see that it is a trial version as shown above.

Now downloading and running the installation of Office 2013 Pro Plus from Office 365 I believe that it updates the existing Office 2013 Pro Plus version it finds on the desktop so that it is licensed for Office 365. You can see this if you look at the application information again.

Looking at the application information in Outlook 2013 you will see that it is not only licensed for Office 365 but you can also manage the account by pressing the Manage Account button.

That button will take you to the area in Office 365 where you can manage the Office 2013 installation for that user.

So in summary, based on the testing I have done:

1. Office 2013 from Office 365 will do an automatic side-by-side installation with previous versions of Office rather than an in place upgrade which could have ramifications for migrating accounts.

2. You should be able to install a trial version of Office 2013 Pro Plus onto a network share and then simply run the Office 2013 installation from Office 365 over the top of it to appropriately license it, thereby saving downloads and setup time.

*** Update 9 September 2014 *****

*** Please see this update – https://blog.ciaops.com/2014/09/installing-office-365-pro-plus-on-rds.html ***

It has been brought to my attention that this post has figured in a recent APAC Google Enterprise newsletter. Having seen the newsletter and being disappointed in the negative approach it has taken to Office 365 I have decided to provide the following points to balance the attempt to insinuate in any way that Office 365 is inferior by what I detailed originally.

1. In no way does the issue below prevent Office 365 services (such as email and collaboration) from operating or reduce their functionality in any way.

2. The subset of customers who this applies to is extremely small when compared to the overall market.

3. Alternate solutions from Microsoft are available.

4. The inclusion of full desktop productivity applications is something that no other vendor provides, to my knowledge, with their cloud offerings.

5. Each qualifying user can install Office desktop software, for MAC or PC, from Office 365 on up to 5 devices.

6. This is the way the product has always been (since Office 365 was launched), so nothing has effectively changed.

7. I still firmly believe desktop software via Office 365 provides the most cost effective solution for customers looking to keep up to date with the latest products they are familiar with, want to use and will work with and without an Internet connection.

Let’s see all products compete on what benefits they provide to end users and not waste energy elsewhere.

I leave the original post unchanged below and also point out that at any time in the future this licensing can be changed. 

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Please note that this post supersedes any of the information I have posted previously on this topic. I also hope I have all this right (fingers crossed).

After further research and contact with Microsoft to get the ‘correct’ information on Remote Desktop Services with Office 2013 Professional Plus via Office 365, in summary I can tell you that:

Any Office 2013 Professional Plus product purchased via the Office 365 console is NOT licensed for Remote Desktop Services no matter what the SKU or plan.

The details are:

At this Office 365 link:

Enterprise value – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj900171.aspx

under the heading Desktop virtualization (user-dedicated VDI and RDS) it says:

“Only Office 365 ProPlus customers with a volume license version of Office Professional Plus 2013 can use Remote Desktop Services (RDS).”

Thus, from the Service Descriptions table in my previous post:

You see 2 subscript. That reads (my emphasis):

“Office 365 ProPlus is supported on user-dedicated virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). To use Remote Desktop Services (RDS), you must use a volume license version of Office Professional Plus 2013, which is available on the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center. For more information, see Microsoft Volume Licensing” Product Use Rights.

This therefore means that WITHOUT Office 2013 Professional Plus Volume Licensing you cannot run use an Office 365 version of Office 2013 for Remote Desktop Services via ANY license.

My previous post highlighted that the Product Use Rights (PUR) listed the M (Mid size business) plan is being available for Remote Desktop Services. Revisiting that more carefully  you find:

Again, if you have Volume Licensing then the M SKU allows Remote Desktop Services.

Here is a response from Microsoft (Partner Technical Consultant) in regards to the issues around the Office 365 M SKU and Remote Desktop Services mentioned in a previous post (my emphasis):

I just got confirmation from the license team.

Both service description and PUR are correct.

If customer purchases Midsize business plan from Office 365 portal, this M plan does not have rights for RDS.

However, if customer purchase Office 365 Midsize business through an Open Business agreement(Volume license), this M plan has rights for RDS.

That is why Office 365 service description lists M plan does not have RDS access permission (as it is for customers who purchase from O365 portal) and PUR lists Office 365 M plan has RDS access permission (as it is for customers who purchase via Volume licensing).

I hope this information address your question.

Now the issue here in Australia is slightly different as for purchases of <250 generally they are completed through the exclusive syndication partner, Telstra. This includes the M SKU. That being the case, the M SKU is therefore not available to be purchased in Australia via Volume Licensing. So, in Australia, the M plan is also excluded from Remote Desktop Services.

This is the response I received from Microsoft Australia Office 365 Product Manager to my previous posts:

I believe you have been blogging on the licensing construct for RDS in Office 365.  I wanted to make sure that you have the official response from Microsoft as it relates to Office 365 and specifically in Syndication in Australia.

With this update of Office 365, Microsoft has addressed the need for customers to run Office 365 ProPlus in virtualized environments using a combination of technical improvements and licensing terms. Functionally, Office 365 ProPlus supports dedicated Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments, but does not work in other configurations including Remote Desktop Service (RDS) and Windows To Go scenarios.

For virtualization situations where Office 365 ProPlus does not work, Microsoft has created a licensing-based workaround that allows customers with an Enterprise Agreement to install Office Professional Plus under the terms and conditions of the Office 365 ProPlus license Product Use Rights (PUR).  This work-around, unfortunately, does not apply to Office 365 procured via syndication, as described within the Reseller User Rights (RUR).

The current user rights allow for the following:

Program	SKUs	VDI	RDS
EA	ProPlus, E3, E4	Yes	Supported using Professional Plus download
Syndication	Midsize Business, ProPlus, E3, E4	Yes	No

We have heard the feedback around the need for an Office 365 RDS solution for all our customers and even though we are not able to resolve this within our current systems and licensing constraints, we will advise if there is a change to the RUR sometime in the future.

Please see the appropriate solutions as recommended by Microsoft in the case of a Remote Desktop requirement:

A.         Customer requires Remote Desktop and has 250+ seats.  Microsoft recommend that the customer consider signing an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft, which will support the Volume Licensing work-around that is currently in place.  Please note that the M-SKU is not available on an Enterprise Agreement and will only allow for the E-SKU. 

B.         Customer requires Remote Desktop and has less than 250 seats.  Microsoft recommends that the customer purchase Office 365 E1/E2 SKU from Telstra and then purchase the required number of Office Pro licenses through your Volume License provider, as long as it is over 5 seats.

Summary

1. When you purchase any Office 365 plan from the portal or via a syndication partner Office 2013 Professional Plus DOES NOT include Remote Desktop rights.

2. To receive Remote Desktop right for Office 2013 Professional Plus via Office 365 you need to have an Office 2013 Professional Plus Volume License.

This means that Office 2013 Professional Plus via Office 365 basically has the same rights as the previous version of Office (2010 Professional Plus) had, that being no Remote Desktop or Terminal Server.

I’m sure that is going to disappoint many and I hope Microsoft does change this soon.

So you have gone out and bought the latest bright new shiny Office 365 package that includes Office 2013 for your business. You figure that one of the benefits of Office 365 is that you’ll be able to insure that all your machines will now have the same version of Office.
That is a GREAT idea but it over looks one VERY IMPORTANT point. Office 2013 requires Windows 7 or better to install. It WON’T install on Windows XP.
I am beginning to see so many people looking to Office 365 as a way to update their in house software which is fine and dandy provided they are still not running a 10+ year old operating system like Windows XP.
Sure, you may have saved some money by not upgrading to Windows Vista and 7 but guess what? To use the latest software you still have to make a jump to at least Windows 7 and that generally won’t be cheap.
So again, consider very carefully how long you elect to not upgrade the software that your business runs. The longer you wait, the further out of the supported window you become and when you have to upgrade you are going to need to jump a long way to catch up. That single jump generally is more expensive and disruptive than a number of smaller increments (but I’m sure some people will argue otherwise).
However, at the end of the day if you purchase Office 2013 in flavour make sure that all the machines you plan to install it on are running at least Windows 7.

*** Update 26 March 2013 *** Please read updated blog post on this:

https://blog.ciaops.com/2013/03/remote-desktop-services-in-office-365.html

A while back I wrote a post how Office 365 now allows Remote Desktop (Terminal Services) with the included Office version that comes with the plans. The gist of that post remains correct however what I have now determined is that not all Office 365 plans that include Office 2013 as part of their plan are entitled to be used in a remote environment.

The following table is from the Service Description for Office Pro Plus with Office 365 – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj819251.aspx

Here you can see that Office 2013 is only licensed for Remote Desktop Services (RDP) with the stand alone Office Pro Plus, E3 and E4 plans. It is not available (according to this) for the Office 365 Small Business Premium or Midsize Business.

However, there is still a little bit of confusion around the entitlement for the Midsize Business Plan because the Produce Use Rights (P82) at:

http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/DocumentSearch.aspx?Mode=3&DocumentTypeId=1

indicates that the Midsize plan does have Remote Desktop Rights.

I expect that this confusion will be cleared up shortly and when I hear more I’ll post it here so stay tuned.