Can't update office

[Robby]

When I attempt to updater office I gert the following
error message - help please

Error! Unable to check for updates on this computer Help

The Office Update site is unable to check for updates on
this computer. This may be happening because of one of
the following reasons:

You do not have administrative privileges for this
computer.
There is a network problem and the detection catalog used
by the Office Update site failed to download. Go back to
the Downloads home page and try running detection again.
Windows Installer patch files (.MSP files) from
previously applied Office updates are missing from the
\Windows\Installer hidden directory on your computer. MSP
files are stored on your computer after update
installation completes because they need to be referenced
for future update operations. If the files are missing
you will not be able to apply Office updates. You may
also be unable to uninstall Office products as a result
of the same problem. Please contact Microsoft Product
Support Services for assistance.

 

[Rufus]

I am also having the same problem, can't seem to fix it. Any advice/help will be appreciated.Tried microsoft help to no avail.

 

[John]

Add me to the club. Same problem, same deadends when I search for "Help" or troubleshooting guidance. Any other ideas? How can we get to a knowledgable source?

 

[John]

Hey guys, after I wrote this I continued to dig around and found several mentions from some MS guru of needing to run the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility, and it supplied a link that didn't work. Eventually, I noted that this disc group formatting had corrupted the intended link, so when I cleared out the ">"s then it worked. I downloaded, installed the "cleaner", noted that I had several files listed by it that involved Office (some left from my old Office 2000 and those from my new 2003. So I used the control key and picked about half of the files listed (mainly any that I have had problems running updates with, like also Norton, etc.). Hit the remove button and then went back and tried Office Update and it ran as intended. Also, they warn that you might have to reinstall some of the programs "cleaned" but so far I haven't had to do any. Norton manual update seemed to work OK too, the the auto update that doesn't run for me, so time will tell if this helped (but it can't be worse than before). So try the CleanUp, Knowledge base article 290301. Good luck!