We purchased and tried to install Microsoft Office LTSC Standard on a Windows Terminal Server 2019 for a client. It failed with an error 0-2054, which is a general purpose error message that doesn't help at all. Nothing in any of the logs, just a message saying “maybe you're out of disk space, or maybe you're Internet connection is bad.”

Searching the Internet brought up a lot of people with similar issues, but even the ones that had a solution did not solve this problem. I talked to a Microsoft Certified Engineer, who gave some advice also, but again, no success. I still have no idea why the original failed.

The client really needed this installed as soon as possible, so, after a couple of days of searching, I realized it was likely the new installation system Microsoft has set up that was causing the issue.

In the past, you would get a CD or download an ISO from Microsoft and install from there. However, to install Microsoft Office now, you download a small executable which, when run, creates a subdirectory with a binary file (setup.exe) and one or more XML files. It appears the same setup.exe is used for all Microsoft Office installs after 2016, with the XML file configuring which product you are installing.

Note: It appears that saving the ODT directory described below to a safe backup location is equivalent to saving an installation ISO in that it allows you to do a reinstall if necessary.

A lot of time, the new setup just works. However, if it does not, and you're comfortable on the command line, it is less prone to error to do the install from the command line.

1. Visit https://config.office.com/deploymentsettings and fill in the information for the product you are trying to install.
2. Export that configuration to a file on your computer
3. While there, download the latest copy of the Offline Deployment Tool
4. Follow instructions at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-office-offline-installer-f0a85fe7-118f-41cb-a791-d59cef96ad1c to do the installation.

We purchased Microsoft Office LTSC Standard 2021 for the client. Going to Microsoft's web site, we downloaded what was supposed to be the installer for it, but it failed. By doing some command line work, we were able to get the installation to work after a few days of working on the project, but it was installing the wrong version (Professional instead of Standard) so our license key did not work. So, there were two problems.

The offline deployment tool (ODT) works well, but the instructions are fairly difficult to locate. Most of the instructions assume everything is working in the GUI, not assuming you are having problems which are being hidden. It appears the ODT is simply the standard installer, minus the XML configuration file.

When the installer failed, it left some files laying around. I looked at them and found setup.exe, plus four XML files. From memory, it appeared two were for Office 365 (32 and 64 bit) and the other two were for Office Enterprise, again 32 and 64 bit versions.

I opened the command prompt as administrator and went into the directory. From there, I ran

setup.exe /?

to see what parameters it might take. I was mainly hoping for a verbose or debugging mode, but no such luck.

However, there was a /download option which said it needed a configuration file as the lone parameter (after the option), so I ran

setup.exe /download nameOf64BitEnterpriseFile.xml

. It immediately started downloading a bunch of stuff. No messages, but looking at the network graph on the Task Manager showed that. After a few minutes, I got control of the screen back and saw a new subdirectory under the one setup.exe was in.

I played with other parameters, then finally discovered that

setup.exe /configure nameOf64BitEnterpriseFile.xml

actually did the install.

Assuming I was done, I patted myself on the back and opened Excel, so I could put in the license key and activate. It would not accept my license key, telling me something like

This product key is for the Volume License version of Microsoft Office LTSC STandard 2021 which isn't currently installed

I looked and saw that we had installed the Professional version. I had used the configuration file downloaded from Microsoft's download site. You log in, you go to your products, select the one you want to install, then it downloads and begins the install. The one I chose was Office LTSC Standard 2021, which is what I bought. Uninstalled it and downloaded the 2019 version (same license is for 2016, 2019 and 2021), use the new XML and did the manual install with the same results.

This was very perplexing. I opened the XML file

Finally, I looked at the XML file in question.

original.xml

<!-- Office 2021 enterprise client configuration file sample. To be used for Office 2021 
     enterprise volume licensed products only, including Office 2021 Professional Plus,
     Visio 2021, and Project 2021.
 
     Do not use this sample to install Office 365 products.
 
     For detailed information regarding configuration options visit: http://aka.ms/ODT. 
     To use the configuration file be sure to remove the comments
 
     The following sample allows you to download and install Office 2021 Professional Plus,
     Visio 2021 Professional, and Project 2021 Professional directly from the Office CDN.
 
     This configuration file will remove all other Click-to-Run products in order to avoid
     product conflicts and ensure successful setup.
 -->
 
 
 
<Configuration>
 
  <Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="PerpetualVL2021">
    <Product ID="ProPlus2021Volume">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Lync" />
    </Product>
    <Product ID="VisioPro2021Volume">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
    </Product>
    <Product ID="ProjectPro2021Volume">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
    </Product>
  </Add>
 
  <Remove All="True" />
 
  <!--  <RemoveMSI All="True" /> -->
 
  <!--  <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />  -->
 
  <!--  <Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="1" />  -->
 
</Configuration>

Note that this is for ProPlus2021Volume.

Finally, after playing a little, I tried various names to change the product, then found https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/troubleshoot/installation/product-ids-supported-office-deployment-click-to-run, which has a list of all available products. Replacing ProPlus2021Volume with Standard2021Volume and removing a bunch of extra stuff yielded this XML file:

manual.xml

<!-- Office 2021 enterprise client configuration file sample. To be used for Office 2021 
     enterprise volume licensed products only, including Office 2021 Professional Plus,
     Visio 2021, and Project 2021.
 
     Do not use this sample to install Office 365 products.
 
     For detailed information regarding configuration options visit: http://aka.ms/ODT. 
     To use the configuration file be sure to remove the comments
 
     The following sample allows you to download and install Office 2021 Professional Plus,
     Visio 2021 Professional, and Project 2021 Professional directly from the Office CDN.
 
     This configuration file will remove all other Click-to-Run products in order to avoid
     product conflicts and ensure successful setup.
 -->
 
 
 
<Configuration>
 
  <Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="PerpetualVL2021">
    <Product ID="Standard2021Volume">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Lync" />
    </Product>
  </Add>
 
  <Remove All="True" />
 
  <!--  <RemoveMSI All="True" /> -->
 
  <!--  <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />  -->
 
  <!--  <Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="1" />  -->
 
</Configuration>

When I ran /download followed by /configure, I was able to install the standard version which accepted the product key I had, so my clients were able to use their system, finally.

Obviously, someone at Microsoft put the wrong configuration file in the Standard version download.

After we were able to do this, I did a little more research and found that Microsoft has a very nice configuration tool for the new installation program. It is located at https://config.office.com/deploymentsettings and allows you to use a web form to create the deployment configuration file. In addition to the basics, it has some optional configuration such as choosing which components of a product to install, whether to automatically uninstall older versions, and even setting your company name and a description for all users. It even allows you to set the default file format to Open Document vs Microsoft XML.

Finally, when you are exporting the file, it gives you a link to download the latest version of the Office Deployment Tool to ensure you are up to date on that.

I'd recommend the following procedure:

1. Fill out the form at https://config.office.com/deploymentsettings
2. Export the form
   1. Grab a fresh copy of the Office Deployment tool
   2. Save the xml file created to a convenient location. Following instructions assume it is named configuration.xml
3. Create a directory. Recommended by Microsoft is c:\ODT
4. Run the new copy of the Office Deployment Tool and point the installer to c:\ODT
5. Copy the XML file you downloaded into that directory
6. Open a command prompt as administrator
   1. Move to the created directory

      cd \odt

   2. Download installation files

      setup /download configuration.xml

   3. Get a cup of coffee while it finishes (takes a while, especially on a slow connection)
   4. Start the installation

      setup /configure configuration.xml

7. Done.

Following is an example of configuration.xml created by the web site. Note that it has a lot more options than I even knew were needed.

configuration.xml

<Configuration ID="24139c1f-d8ac-461c-9a45-522cba2db787">
  <Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="PerpetualVL2021">
    <Product ID="Standard2021Volume" PIDKEY="KDX7X-BNVR8-TXXGX-4Q7Y8-78VT3">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
    </Product>
    <Product ID="VisioStd2019Volume" PIDKEY="7TQNQ-K3YQQ-3PFH7-CCPPM-X4VQ2">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
    </Product>
    <Product ID="ProjectStdXVolume" PIDKEY="D8NRQ-JTYM3-7J2DX-646CT-6836M">
      <Language ID="en-us" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
      <ExcludeApp ID="OneDrive" />
    </Product>
  </Add>
  <Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="0" />
  <Property Name="FORCEAPPSHUTDOWN" Value="FALSE" />
  <Property Name="DeviceBasedLicensing" Value="0" />
  <Property Name="SCLCacheOverride" Value="0" />
  <Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="1" />
  <Updates Enabled="TRUE" />
  <RemoveMSI />
  <AppSettings>
    <User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\excel\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="60" Type="REG_DWORD" App="excel16" Id="L_SaveExcelfilesas" />
    <User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\powerpoint\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="52" Type="REG_DWORD" App="ppt16" Id="L_SavePowerPointfilesas" />
    <User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\word\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="ODT" Type="REG_SZ" App="word16" Id="L_SaveWordfilesas" />
  </AppSettings>
</Configuration>

• https://config.office.com/deploymentsettings
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/troubleshoot/installation/product-ids-supported-office-deployment-click-to-run
• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-office-offline-installer-f0a85fe7-118f-41cb-a791-d59cef96ad1c

These are a couple of the sites I visited that did not help solve the problem, but do show some other issues and solutions.

• https://learn.microsoft.com/answers/questions/896144/cannot-install-office-error-code-0-2054.html
• https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/getting-error-0-2054-0-when-using-the-office/d6ae0321-1153-4d2d-a7a9-6654272e25bd