How I finally uninstalled Office 2003 - Thanks Alton whoever you are...

[jeffhenrichs]

I spent all day Sunday trying to fix an Office install and finally got
it working this afternoon. I looked up my problem and saw lots of
people with the same question, often unanswered. Thus I wanted to
share this in case it helps someone.

My Problem:

I upgraded my hard drive from a 40GB to a 160GB. Imaged the disk over
with provided utility. Swap out disks, start up. Try to launch Word,
and I get errors about a missing file. Details aren't that
interesting... anyway I ended up just trying to uninstall and reinstall
the product (MS Office 2003 Standard). Couldn't do the uninstall, I
got:

"The installation source for this product is not available."

Tried renaming the HKLM and HKCU registry branches for Office...
verified the OfficeUpdate11 (or similar) under HKClassesRoot matched a
working install... tried renaming my Program Files\Microsoft Office
folder etc. Then changed them back... cross referenced against a
working install, couldn't find anything to explain it. This was
originally just a vanilla out-of-the-box Office 2003 install to
defaults on C from a local CD.

The Solution:

So ultimately I found a link to Windows Install Cleanup. Someone named
Alton [MS] provided it. Downloaded and installed it, launched it,
selected Office 2003, two DOS boxes popped up for a couple seconds,
then I was able to reinstall from CD. Wonderful stuff... Hope this
helps someone else. From here out is the quoted original.


3. Alton [MS] Jul 13, 6:05 pm show options
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.officeupdate
From: "Alton [MS]"
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 15:05:02 -0700
Local: Wed, Jul 13 2005 6:05 pm
Subject: Re: office update is unable to check for updates

Try to perform an uninstall of the Office product. If you cannot
actually
uninstall, your product installation is corrupt.

To fix this you need to use the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility to
remove
the Office product and reinstall it
(http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301)

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

The Windows Installer Cleanup Utility is referenced in these Office news
groups about 10 times per day. A simple search of the google archives would
have produced the answer and you could have spent your Sunday away from the
computer, had dinner and a movie out, and a good night's rest, knowing that
your research paid off.

As for me, I sometimes enjoy chewing at a computer problem for days at a
time. But, then, that's me I usually end up going to groups.google.com
in the end.


--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, (e-mail address removed) asked:

| I spent all day Sunday trying to fix an Office install and finally got
| it working this afternoon. I looked up my problem and saw lots of
| people with the same question, often unanswered. Thus I wanted to
| share this in case it helps someone.
|
| My Problem:
|
| I upgraded my hard drive from a 40GB to a 160GB. Imaged the disk over
| with provided utility. Swap out disks, start up. Try to launch Word,
| and I get errors about a missing file. Details aren't that
| interesting... anyway I ended up just trying to uninstall and
| reinstall the product (MS Office 2003 Standard). Couldn't do the
| uninstall, I got:
|
| "The installation source for this product is not available."
|
| Tried renaming the HKLM and HKCU registry branches for Office...
| verified the OfficeUpdate11 (or similar) under HKClassesRoot matched a
| working install... tried renaming my Program Files\Microsoft Office
| folder etc. Then changed them back... cross referenced against a
| working install, couldn't find anything to explain it. This was
| originally just a vanilla out-of-the-box Office 2003 install to
| defaults on C from a local CD.
|
| The Solution:
|
| So ultimately I found a link to Windows Install Cleanup. Someone
| named Alton [MS] provided it. Downloaded and installed it, launched
| it, selected Office 2003, two DOS boxes popped up for a couple
| seconds, then I was able to reinstall from CD. Wonderful stuff...
| Hope this helps someone else. From here out is the quoted original.
|
|
| 3. Alton [MS] Jul 13, 6:05 pm show options
| Newsgroups: microsoft.public.officeupdate
| From: "Alton [MS]"
| Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 15:05:02 -0700
| Local: Wed, Jul 13 2005 6:05 pm
| Subject: Re: office update is unable to check for updates
|
| Try to perform an uninstall of the Office product. If you cannot
| actually
| uninstall, your product installation is corrupt.
|
| To fix this you need to use the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility to
| remove
| the Office product and reinstall it
| (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301)