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.

Searching the Internet did not bring up a working solution; the ones I tried simply failed again. I still have no idea why the original failed. There were no messages in the log files I could find.

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. Looking at the download from Microsoft, I realized it was a compressed file that, when uncompressed, left a binary (setup.exe) and one or more XML files. Additional searching showed this is the new norm for Microsoft. setup.exe simply reads the XML file, download the application, then installs. This can all be done manually from the command line.

Download the installer from the link Microsoft sent you. Sometimes it is hard to find, but the installer is generally a small (couple of hundred meg) executable. When you run it, it will unpack. If all goes well, it will install, but if not, look for a new subdirectory of wherever you executed from containing setup.exe plus one or more XML files.

Microsoft has something called the Offline Deployment Tool. It appears to me to be the exact same thing as the installer above. You can see the instructions at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-office-offline-installer-f0a85fe7-118f-41cb-a791-d59cef96ad1c. Follow the instructions for your platform.

Now, all you need is the XML file that defines the installation. If your original installer left things laying around, just grab the correct one of those. I found out much later that all the product id's are listed at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/troubleshoot/installation/product-ids-supported-office-deployment-click-to-run. You can take a current configuration (xml) and modify it by hand for the product you want to install.

It would have been much easier if I had used the Office Customization Tool at https://config.office.com/deploymentsettings. This is excellent. It allows you to Create a new configuration with the WebUI, then you can export that to your machine. It even allows you to enter the company name and set some other defaults, such as using OpenDocument format instead of Microsoft XML, which is useful if your organization requires that.

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>

Now, open a command prompt. I used administrator privileges, but I'm not sure it was necessary. Move to the ODT directory.

cd \ODT

Begin the download. The syntax is setup /download configurationFileName. Note that it will download the entire install, so this may take some time, and there is no feedback.

setup /download configuration.xml

Finally, do the installation. For some reason, it is called configure, not install, but hey…

setup /configure configuration.xml

You should soon see the standard installation process happen in the GUI.

When I tried this the first 10 or 15 times, it failed because I was installing Office 2021 Professional, and was licensed for Office 2021 Standard. I went back to the download site several times and it still was installing Pro.

Finally, I looked at the XML file in question