Complete Guide to Deploying Office Using Office Deployment Tool (ODT)

The Office Deployment Tool (ODT) is Microsoft’s official command-line utility for downloading, configuring, and deploying Click-to-Run versions of Microsoft Office 2024, Office 2021, and Microsoft 365 Apps. While standard web-based installers automatically download every single application in the suite to your C: drive, ODT gives IT administrators and power users full granular control via a simple configuration.xml file. With ODT, you can selectively exclude unwanted bloatware (such as OneDrive or Teams), choose between 64-bit and 32-bit architecture, pre-download full installation files for offline offline deployment across multiple PCs, and automate silent installations without user prompts.

1. Step 1: Download the Office Deployment Tool

1. Download the official Office Deployment Tool from Microsoft Download Center.
2. Create a dedicated folder on your drive, e.g., C:\ODT.
3. Run the downloaded executable (officedeploymenttool.exe), accept the terms, and extract the files into C:\ODT. You will see setup.exe and several sample XML files.

2. Step 2: Create Your Custom configuration.xml

Open Notepad, paste the following configuration tailored for Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business (Retail 64-bit), and save it as C:\ODT\configuration.xml:

3. Step 3: Download Office Files for Offline Use

To pre-download the ~3GB installation files to your local folder so you never need to download them again:

1. Open Command Prompt as administrator.
2. Navigate to your folder: cd C:\ODT.
3. Execute the download command:

A new Office folder will appear in C:\ODT. The command prompt cursor will blink while downloading; when finished, it returns to the prompt prompt line.

4. Step 4: Execute Silent / Custom Installation

Once downloaded (or immediately if streaming directly from Microsoft CDN), run the configure command:

Office will install cleanly, strictly following your XML parameters without installing excluded components!

5. Frequently Asked Questions