After 2 days of messing around I managed to install and run Word, Excel and Powerpoint from Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise on Ubuntu, using Wine 1.0 rc1. For now, this tutorial is only tested on feisty. I have to try it on my hardy box, before I post that it works, which I will when I find the time. But the steps will be very similar, so you can try it. This being said I just want to mention that Office is still buggy, Word and Excel only worked in safe mode, which is limited in functionality, Powerpoint worked in normal mode. I didn't manage to start the other apps. But what worked, is kinda usable (no math in Word e.g.). I could open, save and print files without a problem.

UPDATE: After a relog there were MS Office icons-links in the wine menu. Using those I could run Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote and Publisher in normal mode (as opposed to safe mode), so with full functionality. Access, outlook and Groove didn't start.

When something went wrong, I uninstalled wine, deleted the .wine directory from my homedir and started over again.

1. Installation of Wine 1.0 rc1

Start with a clean Wine install. I used a .deb package which I compiled from source. Get it here

first I installed checkinstall, to make a .deb package. This makes it easy to completely remove wine1.0 and reinstall it. I also installed winbind, but I'm not sure if it's needed

sudo apt-get install checkinstall

sudo apt-get install winbind

So, to compile, get the source from sourceforge.net

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/wine/wine-1.0-rc1.tar.bz2?modtime=1210362720&big_mirror=1

untar it:

tar xvjf wine-1.0-rc1.tar.bz2

cd wine-1.0-rc1

su

make depend && make

checkinstall

you'll need to put some info in the package. Copy it to your desktop and chown it to your user.

exit

Now, Install the package, by clicking on it.

2. Configure wine for the installation

winecfg

First Wine will build a c: drive. After this select Vista for the Windows version. Select rpcrt4.dll in the libraries tab, add and edit it, to native (Windows). I also choose to emulate a virtual desktop of 1024x768 in the graphics tab. Ok

Next I backed up my rpcrt4.dll from ~/.wine/Windows/system32/ and replaced it with the one you can find in the attachment. Untar it and copy it over the one in system32.

ok, wine is configured.

3. Install extra needed DLL's and fonts with winetricks

get winetricks:

wget www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks

and execute it

sh winetricks msxml3 dotnet20 gdiplus riched20 riched30 vcrun2005sp1 allfonts

This will install the needed .NET2.0, dll's fonts etc.

I got some errors right after .NET2.0 was installed, so I looked into the code at downloaded the fonts manually from

http://apt.debian.org.tw/pool/t/ttf-arphic-ukai/ttf-arphic-ukai_0.1.2006...
http://apt.debian.org.tw/pool/t/ttf-arphic-uming/ttf-arphic-uming_0.1.20...

I untarred them, and copied them over the ones in /usr/share/fonts/truetype/arphic/.
I uninstalled wine from synaptic, deleted ~/.wine and started all over again.
When this step finishes without errors, continue ...

4. Installing MS Office 2007

I put the cd in my drive and executed:

wine /media/cdrom0/setup.exe

The install will begin, It appeared to hang at about 2/3, but it was still working. I could see disk and cpu activity on my system monitor. So I went away and came back 40 minutes later and it was installed.

5. Configure wine to run Office 2007

winecfg

select Windows XP als the windows version. Deselect the virtual desktop. In the libraries tab (where more dll's were added by winetricks) edit the override for rpcrt4.dll to be builtin (wine). I also remove rpcrt4.dll from .../system32 (I copied it to my desktop)

6. Start Word, Excel and Powerpoint

wine .wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Microsoft\ Office/Office12/WINWORD.EXE /safe

wine .wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Microsoft\ Office/Office12/EXCEL.EXE /safe


wine .wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Microsoft\ Office/Office12/POWERPNT.EXE

UPDATE:
After I relogged in, there were MS Office icons-links in my wine menu. Using those I could run Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote and Publisher in normal mode (as opposed to safe mode), so with full functionality. Access, outlook and Groove didn't start.

here are the screenshots:

Remarks

I can't guarantee it will work for you. I'm not a Wine expert, I just played around and it worked. If it doesn't work, I can suggest to use Virtualbox. I got that on my Hardy box, and it worked. It's less buggy, but you'll need to create a virtual machine, so you'll use more resources. Office under wine is quite reponsive and completely integrated. I could run it with compiz.... wobbly Word :D

Hope it works for you.