Fresh install failed! Why?

[djbell]

Word has recently been crashing frequently, so I thought I'd try a
fresh install. I put in the CD, and started the install, but when I
get to the installation part of the dialogue, it fails because "there
was no software found to install."

What the heck does that mean?! Anyone?

My copy of office is a legal, home and student edition.

 

[John McGhie]

This is the same error: The installer uses Spotlight to find the existing
software. If Spotlight can't find the software, the installer will fail

You need to find the remove Office tool on your CD and run that first to get
the old software out of there. Then it should "know" there's nothing to
look for and install a fresh copy.

After that, you will need to re-apply the 12.2.0 update.

We need to understand that "re-installing" Office has no effect (it does
nothing) on a Macintosh, unless you run Remove Office first.

That's because problems with Office are not caused by damage to the Office
program files, they're caused by wrong information in the settings files
(the .plist files).

The settings files are files that notionally you (the user) create. They do
not exist on the CD. Settings files are generated when each of the Office
Applications first runs.

Unless you run the Remove Office application, the damaged files remain on
the disk, they are not overwritten, and they continue to contain the bad
values that are causing the problems.

Hope this helps

Word has recently been crashing frequently, so I thought I'd try a
fresh install. I put in the CD, and started the install, but when I
get to the installation part of the dialogue, it fails because "there
was no software found to install."

What the heck does that mean?! Anyone?

My copy of office is a legal, home and student edition.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[djbell]

That helps a lot, thanks John.

This is the same error:  The installer uses Spotlight to find the existing
software.  If Spotlight can't find the software, the installer will fail

You need to find the remove Office tool on your CD and run that first to get
the old software out of there.  Then it should "know" there's nothing to
look for and install a fresh copy.

After that, you will need to re-apply the 12.2.0 update.

We need to understand that "re-installing" Office has no effect (it does
nothing) on a Macintosh, unless you run Remove Office first.

That's because problems with Office are not caused by damage to the Office
program files, they're caused by wrong information in the settings files
(the .plist files).

The settings files are files that notionally you (the user) create.  They do
not exist on the CD.  Settings files are generated when each of the Office
Applications first runs.

Unless you run the Remove Office application, the damaged files remain on
the disk, they are not overwritten, and they continue to contain the bad
values that are causing the problems.

Hope this helps





This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

 --

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[djbell]

Still can't figure this out!

On my Office CD, there does not seem to be an unintall office tool,
running the disc only leads to intall, and then failure, there is
never a choice to first remove office.
If I open the contents of the bundle, I do find files called
removeoffice, but they are either text or unix files, and none of them
seem to run or do what I need to do.

I did however find an unistall office app in the list of office tools
already installed. I ran that, emptied the trash, rebooted, and then
tried to CD installation again. SAME ERROR! Why is this so
difficult? What am I doing wrong??

 

[djbell]

I ran it again, and this time noticed that there is a "remove" step in
the left hand bar of the intall dialogue window, second from the
bottom. But when I go through the wizard, it just skips this step. I
never have a chance to chose it.

 

[djbell]

I ran it again, and this time noticed that there is a "remove" step in
the left hand bar of the intall dialogue window, second from the
bottom.  But when I go through the wizard, it just skips this step.  I
never have a chance to chose it.

Finally got it figured out! In the end, all of this wasted time and
frustration was because my OS language was not set to English, but to
Chinese. Turns out, no install will work, no matter what you do, if
you don't first change the primary language, log out, then log back
in. What an insult, MS! And this is nowhere in the literature that I
can find. Arggggggggggg!

 

[John McGhie]

{Sob!} Wish you had told us that

Yes, Microsoft Office for Mac is not a "Universal Language" application yet:
each Language version is different, and the Installer senses the language
from the OS.

But I agree with you: It would NOT be too hard to add a line to the
installer to say "The language set on this system is incompatible,
installation cannot proceed."

Sorry about that: your English is obviously native-speaker, so we never
twigged you might be using a different language.

Cheers

Finally got it figured out! In the end, all of this wasted time and
frustration was because my OS language was not set to English, but to
Chinese. Turns out, no install will work, no matter what you do, if
you don't first change the primary language, log out, then log back
in. What an insult, MS! And this is nowhere in the literature that I
can find. Arggggggggggg!

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[djbell]

{Sob!} Wish you had told us that

Yes, Microsoft Office for Mac is not a "Universal Language" application yet:
each Language version is different, and the Installer senses the language
from the OS.

But I agree with you: It would NOT be too hard to add a line to the
installer to say "The language set on this system is incompatible,
installation cannot proceed."

Sorry about that: your English is obviously native-speaker, so we never
twigged you might be using a different language.

Cheers




This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

OK, well thanks for the help, John! Oh and does this mean that in the
future, when I want to run microsoft updater and install updates, I
have to switch to English before running the update? Do I have to log
out, then log back in for it to install properly?

 

[John McGhie]

Yes. Every time! The installer is pretty flakey

If cour OS is not set to the language matching the incoming patch, and the
caches have not been cleared (by rebooting), then the best that will happen
is that the installation will fail. In some circumstances, it appears that
you will get a "mixture" of old and new, and thus continual crashes.

Cheers

OK, well thanks for the help, John! Oh and does this mean that in the
future, when I want to run microsoft updater and install updates, I
have to switch to English before running the update? Do I have to log
out, then log back in for it to install properly?

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]