Caveat: Office 2003 SP 1

[Howard Kaikow]

I was foolish enough to install SP 1 today.

Alas, SP 1 does appear to be causing significant problems with IE and/or OE,
etc.

Symptoms include:
1. I get locked out of the icon in the system tray that shows the
connection, so I cannot disconnect. This did not happen right way.
2. When I tried to Reply to a newsposting, the editing window appears, then
quickly disappears.
3. IE did not seem to connect to sites.
4. Worst, if I do Atl Ctrl Del, the task manager window appears then
disappears.
5. Ditto for trying to get to the Start Menu.
6. I tried using Alt S to get to the Start Menu, but it appeared then
disappeared.
7. I then quickly typed Alt S, then Alt u to get to the Start Menu. Alas,
that too disappeared.
8. I then quickly typed, Alt S, then Alt u and Return QUICKLY and was able
to restart.
9. I had thought that OE problems do not occur while I am offline, which is
how I managed to
type a message for another group, however, I spoke too soon.

While I was typing the message, offline and not connected, problems
occurred.
I kept fiddling with Alt shortcuts until I got to Shut Down button in task
manager.

I then rebooted to Safe mode.
Could not uninstall Office as "Windows Installer was not available".
So I did a reboot.

After rebooting to safe mode, system seems to be working properly (but how
long will this last?).
Right now, seems to be working, but I have no faith that things will
continue to work.

 

[Howard Kaikow]

I just spoke to MSFT tech support.
They could not offer help on the problem.

Although (I should byte my tounge, but here goes), since booting to Safe
mode, and then booting to Normal mode, system seems to be running properly,
at least it has for the past 2+ hours (I likely just jinxed myself!).