Access 2000 with Office 2003 and office assistant character error

[Jim Bud]

We upgraded our users to Office 2003 but kept Access out of the upgrade such
that if a computer has Access 2000 it will not touch it. Anyways, we have
users with Access 2000 and Office 2003 installed on some users computers.
When they open for example Word 2003 they get an error "THERE IS NO OFFICE
ASSISTANT CHARACTER FILES PRESENT. PLEASE RUN SETUP IN MAINTENANCE MODE TO
INSTALL AT LEAST ONE CHARACTER"

I have found some links on this like
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;840644 which suggests
to obtain Office 2000 post SP3 hotfix. We never implemented SP3 for Office
2000.
I have also found other links like http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=837825
which says Microsoft has confirmed this as a known issue but no resolution.

Then one more which has sublinks to other KB articles which don't help.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840644/

Any ideas on solutions rather then running office 2000 SP3 then the post sp3
hotfix and not having to reinstall office?

 

[Bob I]

With mixed Office versions, disabling the "Assistant" is the quick fix.

 

[Jim Bud]

That is one way yes, any other ways anyone know of?

 

[Beth Melton]

Is there a reason you are not using Access 2003? Access 2003 supports
the Access 2000 file format so an Access 2000 database can be shared
between users of Access 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/