How do I open Excell after an update that went bad?

[ginnyannb]

I bought my presario with Office XP already installed on it and there is no
disk for it in my pack of documents. I bought my computer in Sept. of 2004,
so Compaq won't help me without me forking over $45. I received notice there
was an update for Office XP service pack 3. I didn't think anything of it
and told it to install. A few moments later it said that I need to put in
the Office XP Professional disk (that I do not have) to continue. When I
click out of this, it says there was a fatal error while installing the
update. It will not let me open my excel documents, which is where I keep
"everything.

Please help me. I am sure I am not the only one with this problem.

Thank you so very much.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Only those with no Office CD have these problems.

Have you tried a System Restore to an earlier date?

Don't know if that will help but should not hurt.

Otherwise you will have to deal with Compaq for an Office CD


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[JLatham]

Your first task is to backup up all of your .xls files before you go any
further at all. Put them on floppies, CDs, DVDs, whatever - get a good copy
of them tucked safely away, because...
Before this is all over you may have to take some drastic measures:
either pay Compaq their $45
or find a friend with a copy of Office XP Pro to borrow long enough to
complete the install.

Meanwhile - look and see if XP did not set a RESTORE POINT just before
starting the installation of the updates. It should have if your settings
are standard. All office updates "force" a RESTORE POINT creation as part of
the process.

If that fails, you can search around on the hard drive and see if you cannot
locate the installation folder on it for Office XP Pro. Most systems such as
HP/Compaq and Dell come with the installation software in a separate portion
(partition) of the main hard drive, it usually has a different drive letter.
You are supposed to be able to restore the system from that in case of fatal
error (of course I don't know what you're supposed to do if the hard drive
itself fails). If you can locate that installation folder, when asked for
the Office XP CD, you should be able to browse to that folder to point it to
the needed files there.

Good luck.