Error code 1634

[Robert]

Greetings--
Could anyone point me to some documentation on error code 1634 in Word 2003
(Windows XP Home SP2)?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You might try asking in a Windows newsgroup. This one is for Word.

 

[Beth Melton]

I suspect you are encountering a Windows Installer error.

When does the error occur? Are you trying to install something? If so
what? Do you have an exact error message?

--
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/

 

[Robert]

I suspect you are encountering a Windows Installer error.

When does the error occur? Are you trying to install something? If so
what? Do you have an exact error message?

Greetings--
Thanks for showing sympathy, Beth.

I know this is supposed to be a "Windows Installer error" but the message
is displaying only in Word 2003. This is not showing in any other
application or under any other circumstances. It is happening when I click
on the spellchecking tab in the Word 2003 global options. At times, it is
also displaying when I create a new document in Word 2003.

I started getting these messages after I had installed, then uninstalled a
Word spellchecker add-in called Cordial 2005. That add-in was slowing down
Word so much that I uninstalled it. Now I am stuck with these messages. It
seems that all the original Word proofing tools have vanished from my
installation. The messages say "Microsoft Office Word cannot check the
spelling or grammar in this document. Microsoft Office Word cannot install
the required components because of a Windows Installer error, code 1634."

I tried doing a repair, then a complete Word reinstall to no avail.

 

[Robert]

You might try asking in a Windows newsgroup. This one is for Word.

Greetings--
Thanks for the great help, Suzanne!
All by myself I would never have thought that
news://microsoft.public.word.application.errors was for Word!

 

[Robert]

I suspect you are encountering a Windows Installer error.

When does the error occur? Are you trying to install something? If so
what? Do you have an exact error message?

Greetings--
Hurray! I have solved this problem by removing Word 2003 from my system,
then by doing a new Word 2003 install from scratch. I also went to Office
Update and installed MS Office 2003 SP1. So this was a Word problem indeed.
Funnily enough, the standard Word 2003 repair or reinstall procedure had
not been enough.
End of the matter.
Again, Beth, thanks for showing sympathy.

 

[Beth Melton]

Windows Installer is used to install and maintain your software
installations. If Office is attempting to install on demand Windows
Installer is utilized. Windows Installer error 1634 is a generic
error. It simply means "component not used on this machine".

It could be there was still some code looking for your Cordial 2005
add-in and it could not be found or Word was attempting to install
something.

I suspect the former since a repair/reinstall didn't correct the
error. If you also deleted files/folders, etc then you probably
deleted whatever was looking for the add-in. It could have been the
add-in placed macros in your Normal.dot and it isn't recreated during
a repair/reinstall.

In any case I'm glad to hear you have it resolved.

--
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/

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You would probably not believe the number of Outlook, Excel, Works,
Publisher, PictureIt!, and Windows questions we get here and in other Word
NGs, especially word.newusers, which is (or was) given as an example of
cross-posting in the Communities interface, with the result that we get a
lot of Windows questions cross-posted to word.newusers.

 

[Robert]

You would probably not believe the number of Outlook, Excel, Works,
Publisher, PictureIt!, and Windows questions we get here and in other Word
NGs, especially word.newusers, which is (or was) given as an example of
cross-posting in the Communities interface, with the result that we get a
lot of Windows questions cross-posted to word.newusers.

Greetings--
To be honest I never cross-post. I wouldn't know how to do it even if I
wanted to.
In any case, this was a Word problem indeed. It turned out that the
original Normal.dot had been modified by a spellchecker add-in. The add-in
had been uninstalled but it had left a macro in Normal.dot calling for
spellchecking dlls which no longer were there.

 

[Robert]

Windows Installer is used to install and maintain your software
installations. If Office is attempting to install on demand Windows
Installer is utilized. Windows Installer error 1634 is a generic
error. It simply means "component not used on this machine".

It could be there was still some code looking for your Cordial 2005
add-in and it could not be found or Word was attempting to install
something.

I suspect the former since a repair/reinstall didn't correct the
error. If you also deleted files/folders, etc then you probably
deleted whatever was looking for the add-in. It could have been the
add-in placed macros in your Normal.dot and it isn't recreated during
a repair/reinstall.

In any case I'm glad to hear you have it resolved.

Greetings--
I think that you pinpointed the cause of this. According to that add-in
documentation, it places a macro in Normal.dot during install which
subsequently loads spellchecking dlls. The add-in obviously uninstalled
only partially and that macro kept looking for missing dlls...
I now realize that I did not need to remove, then reinstall Word from
scratch. A simpler solution might have been to delete Normal.dot.

 

[Beth Melton]

Wow! You have documentation on your add-in?? I'm impressed.

A lot of add-ins will modify your Normal.dot but uninstalling the
add-in does not recreate Normal.dot. If it did then that would cause
more issues since users could end up losing their customizations and
would be considered an 'un-neighborly add-in'. It's for the same
reason reinstalling doesn't recreate your personal preferences.

Although in Word 2002/2003 Detect and Repair found under Help does
have an option to discard customized settings so you may opt to take
that route in the future if you can't find the cause. FWIW seldom do
we find the Word installation as the cause of application errors. As
you found, more often than not, the issue is caused by a third-party
add-in.

--
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/