We are adding a 3rd party (PDF converter) to our environment, which requires the Office clients (Word, Excel, InfoPath) installed to complete the PDF conversion. It is possible to run the conversion service on a separate (non-WFE) server to prevent any concerns relating to installing the office clients on the SharePoint farm. Only problem is this requires 2 more licences (licences are based on # of servers). My gut feeling is to keep Office and SharePoint separate, and buy the extra licences. Just wondering if anyone knows if installing MS Office (full client apps) on a SharePoint WFE Server is even supported by Microsoft?

I have never heard that it is not a supported configuration. There are a number of reasons why you wouldn't want to put client tools on the server, but I've seen requirements like this before. It isn't uncommon for me to run office in some small dev builds as well. In most cases the conversion process can be CPU intensive if there is any real volume. I would look to put it on its own server. Why would you have to add two servers though?SharePoint MVP | Developer | Administrator | Speaker-- Twitter -- Blog - http://nextconnect.blogspot.com

Here are couple qoutes: Microsoft does not currently recommend, and does not support, Automation of Microsoft Office applications from any unattended, non-interactive client application or component (including ASP, ASP.NET, DCOM, and NT Services), because Office may exhibit unstable behavior and/or deadlock when Office is run in this environment. Besides the technical problems, you must also consider licensing issues. Current licensing guidelines prevent Office applications from being used on a server to service client requests, unless those clients themselves have licensed copies of Office. Using server-side Automation to provide Office functionality to unlicensed workstations is not covered by the End User License Agreement (EULA). Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257757 Paul Shkurikhin blog.sharepointalist.com

Thanks for the responses. I was also provided this reference from the vender to indicate it's not officially supported: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257757 Seems like separate servers are the way to go. We are using two servers just to make sure everything is highly available... Might need to look into VM solutions one day to confirm this is still required?? just in case you're wondering the vender is Muhimbi - I've got nothing but praise for their support team!

You can alternatively look into PDF converter solutions based on Aspose products. They do not require Microsoft Office and fully supported in server mode. Paul Shkurikhin blog.sharepointalist.com

Thanks Ricky, very happy to have been supporting you. We have looked going down routes that don't require MS-Office on the conversion server, but the 3rd party libraries for converting Office documents are not (yet) mature enough, no matter what they say. We are continuously investigating this market and as our converter software is fully pluggable we (or you) can add other converters with ease. Jeroen (Muhimbi Support)

Best 6-in-1 PDF Converter PDF Converter Windows Version is for PC users dragging PDF files to PDF Converter and convert PDF files to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, EPUB, HTML, and Text. This PDF Converter helps to convert more and save more while dealing with native PDF files. The User-friendly interface makes the PDF Converter extremely easy to use. Support PDF files in 12 languages: English, German, French, Italian, Thai, Latin, Korean, Greek, Cyrillic, Japanese, Chinese, and Turkish. Note: For Mac OS X users, please turn to PDF Converter for Mac >> PDF Converter for PC functions: Batch conversion---Convert as many as 200 PDF files at one time. Partial conversion---Select any pages from the multi-page PDF file to convert. Support password protected PDF files conversion by entering the password. Convert PDF files with copying and printing restrictions directly. Convert PDF to editable Microsoft Office formats or extract text from PDF files to plain text files. Convert eBooks from PDF to EPUB format for iPad, iPhone 4, iPod touch, Sony reader reading. PDF to Word: Output Word documents are fully-formatted and editable. PDF to Excel spreadsheets: all the text and numbers are fully-editable. PDF files to PowerPoint presentations: Edit the presentations easily and add animations to make the presentation more attractive! PDF to EPUB eBooks: The converted EPUB eBooks will self-adjust the screen size of your iPad, iPhone, iTouch, Sony Readers, etc. 6.81 MB pdf converter pdf to swf converter Powerful evidence: using PDF to IMAGE Converter, U can convert pdf to all kinds of image formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, PCX, TGA, TIFF. U can also adjust the color, quailty, resolution, page of the files converted! ipad converter