Installing Microsoft Office 2007 on Fedora 15

I needed to install Microsoft Office 2007 on my Fedora 15 installation, and my first step was to look for a tutorial that might help clear up any gotchas before I hit them. Unfortunately, the closest I found was these two articles:

So, my thought was to create my own how to.  Instead, I think I have created more of a how NOT to!  By the time I was done with all of this, it didn’t work.  So, don’t bother with this article if you are trying to figure out how to make it work.  If you are looking on something to develop to make the world better for Linux users, look no more.  We need help!

Installing Wine

The first step I took in trying to get Office working was obviously installing Wine.  Previously, I had used PlayOnLinux with Ubuntu.  It did a decent job of getting all of the prerequisites working.  Since that wasn’t in the repository, I thought that I would try without it.  So, just installed plain Wine.

I used yumex:

Installing Wine Via Yumex

Note:  I learned later that I need to install the 32-bit version.  I think probably the installing the 64-bit version as this screenshot shows was causing my problems.  I do have the 64-bit version of Fedora 15 installed though.

It installed about 30Mb of dependencies when it installed:
Dependencies for Wine

For me, this installed Wine version 1.3.24:
wine --version   returns Wine Version 1.3.24

Configuring Wine

Next, I went into the Wine Configuration screen. Supposedly, you can find this in Gnome Classic under: Applications > Wine > Configure Wine. For me, I just searched for Wine in the Gnome Shell Applications pane:
Launching Wine Configuration

Once I opened the Configuration, it asked me if I wanted to install Gecko. I said yes (although, I later learned that clicking yes is pointless):
Wine Gecko Installer

It attempted to download and install gecko:
Installing Gecko

When, it was done, it asked me again to install Gecko. I just closed all of the configuration windows and reopened the Wine configuration tool again. It didn’t ask me the second time, and I made sure the version was set to Windows XP:
Selecting Windows Version

Installing Office

Next, I put in my Office CD and ran the Setup.exe using Wine:
Launching Setup.exe from Office CD

The first question it asked was the Product key. I keep that handy so that I can reenter each time I reinstall Linux.
Entering the Product Key in the MS Office Install Window

Next, I had to agree to the license:
Agreeing the MS Office License in the installer

Finally, click the install button to install the software:
Clicking the Install Now button

It takes a few minutes to install…
MS Office Installing In Progress

When it was done, I closed the installer:
Install Complete

After closing the installer, I reopened Wine Configuration tool. Then, I went to the Library tab and added the riched20.dll in the “New override for library” box. After you click Add, you can click the Edit button and change it to “Native(Windows)”.
Override riched20.dll

Now, I see the icons under Other:
Icons in the Applications Menu under Other

First Installer

To start, I tried Word first. It is the program I need the most. On the first run, it asked for my name and Initials:
Name and Initials Screen on Word First Start

Next, it went through a log configuration process a couple of times:
MS Word Configuration on First Start

I received this error message:
Word cannot open this document template: Building Blocks.dotx

After clicking OK, it let me proceed to the activation window:
Microsoft Office Activation Wizard

I chose the over the Internet method, and I was quickly able to complete that:
Microsoft Office Activation Wizard Complete

After clicking the menu button in Word, I got the Privacy Options, which I just accepted the defaults:
Welcome Screen, privacy options

I chose the option to keep the installation up to date:
Sign Up for Microsoft Update

That didn’t work so well!
We cannot sign you up for the Microsoft Update service because there is a problem with the service.

When closing, I received this error message (I think this is probably the key to all of it):

This feature requires MSXML 5.0 to be properly installed.  Run Setup and click Repair to restore this component.

Winetricks

After all this, I still couldn’t open a Power Point Presentation. Power Point would open, no problem, but I couldn’t open a file with it. So, I decided to attempt to install gecko since I had run into issues with it earlier.

Unfortunately, no winetricks RPM exists in the repository, but the Wiki has some nice installation instructions.

First, I installed cabextract:
Installing Cab Extract with YumEx

Then, I used these commands to download winetricks. Note that this assumes you already have a bin directory in your home.

wget -O ~/bin/winetricks http://kegel.com/wine/winetricks
chmod u+x ~/bin/winetricks
winetricks

Once, winetricks was running, I chose to “Select the default wineprefix”:
Winetricks Selecting the WinePrefix

Next, I chose to “Install a Windows DLL or component”:
Winetricks - Installing Components

I selected: allcodecs, gecko, ie8, msxml6, msxml4, riched20, riched30, and winhttp. To be honest, I was just guessing and trying to get as many of the components as I thought it might remotely need.
Selecting Components to Install

During the install, I received this error:
“vcrun2008 install completed, but installed file /home/skp/.wine/dosdevices/c:/windows/winsxs/x86_Microsoft.VC90.MFC_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30729.6161_x-ww_028bc148/mfc90.dll not found”
Winetricks Install Error

That still didn’t work so, I went back to one of the tutorials and found another command to try:

winetricks corefonts tahoma vcrun2005sp1 wsh56js

I had to accept this agreement:
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable (x86)_128

I also had to say yes to the Windows Script 5.6.
Choosing to Install Windows Script 5.6

And, I had to accept the license for that:
Windows Script Agreement

It let me know it was done installing:

Windows Script Install Completed

After all that, it still would not work!  I think I have it working, so stay tuned…

10 thoughts on “Installing Microsoft Office 2007 on Fedora 15

  1. Hello Dear
    My name is Lkhagvadorj from Mongolia. I was install fedora 16 and How can i install or use Yum extender?
    So i dont know how to use Fedora 16. Please help me. I also installing Mircosoft office but still didnt do anything here. My English is not so good. sorry

  2. Did you install cabextract before setting up Office?
    I installed powerpoint just fine without gecko.
    I followed the same procedure as you on f16, installed wine 1.5.1 and cabextract.

    Initially Powerpoint wouldn’t work, but after I read your blog and did override for riched20 it works just fine.

  3. Lkhagvadorj,

    I believe that you can install yum extender by installing the yum package. From a terminal, you can run the following command:
    su -c “yum install yumex”

    If this doesn’t work, you may need to enable the RPM Fusion repositories. These two commands should do the trick:
    su -c ‘rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
    su -c ‘rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

    See this website for more info:
    http://fedorasolved.org/post-install-solutions/yum-config

    I hope it helps. Let me know if you need more help.

  4. NikolaZ,

    I did not specifically install cabextract. I believe winetricks takes care of that automatically.

    Thanks for reporting that it worked for you. I am glad that the article helped you find the riched20 fix.

    Thanks,

    Stephen

    1. Yes, thanks for posting that guide, I was at my wits end already until I found that simple fix. 🙂

      Btw, I have some CD-ROMs with Java and Flash content. They all belong to the same series of educational materials. Funny thing is, some of the levels will play through wine, some won’t. Are there any library overrides that you might suggest?
      I am hoping for a quick fix again 🙂

      (Face2Face textbook CD-Roms)

      1. Unfortunately, I don’t know any good solutions. Just an idea: I Google’d for other flash programs and overrides. Here’s one:
        http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/4bLdgRPkYb6YJmDt9lmX

        These are the DLLs that they overrode:
        ole32 1.2mb
        urlmon 589.5kb
        shlwapi 462.5kb
        shdocvw 1.4mb
        mshtml 2.9mb
        msls31 143kb

        I also found this bug report that mentions the Face2Face programs:
        http://osdir.com/ml/wine-bugs/2009-08/msg03330.html
        http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19893

        But, I didn’t find any solutions listed.

  5. If you install Outlook on Fedora, can you then access the Outlook database through the Microsoft Com object (aka “automation”)?

    1. @Bruce, yes, theoretically you could access the Outlook database and messages. I haven’t played with Outlook that much though. Word and Excel are the applications that I usually need out of office.

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