Office Deployment Tool - We found a problem! Weren't able to download a required file.

Created by NHC IT Support, Modified on Tue, 23 Jan, 2024 at 11:02 AM by NHC IT Support

Hi all,


Just thought I'd share this information. 


I have spent yesterday afternoon trying to install Microsoft Office 2019 using the Office Deployment Tool.


I built the XML install configuration file using the online Office Customization Tool: https://config.office.com/deploymentsettings


Used the normal CMD command to download it (step 1): setup.exe /download configuration.xml

After the download had finished I used the install command as usual (step 2): setup.exe /configure configuration.xml


I put the correct source path in the XML file (sometimes this causes problems if the path is incorrect and I have found sometimes removing it helps too but I left it in for both steps this time).


Unfortunately I received the following error message every time I tried to install Microsoft Office (step 2):


We found a problem! We're sorry, we can't continue because we weren't able to download a required file. Please make sure you're connected to the internet or connect to a different network, then try again.


This was a bit odd as the install files had already downloaded in step 1. Or had they...?


So it turns out after looking at the log files in %temp% that during step 2, the installer was looking for a cab file that just wasn't in the downloaded files from step 1.


After hours spent searching for the problem, in the XML file I changed Language ID from en-gb to en-us (from Great Britain to US).


I tried to download office again (step 1) and it worked! I had more cab files. I then proceeded with the install (step 2) and it worked perfectly.


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