Is the Office Service Pack too much for me?

[Norm]

I have Word 2002 on my computer (and the rest of the
Works 2002 Suite), but I still consider myself a "new
user." The Office download center reports that I should
download the latest Office Service Packs. I don't have
Office, just -- as I said earlier -- the Word 2002
component of Office. The listing of the contents of the
service pack shows a lot of patches/updates for Word as
well as for other components of Office. My question is:
Should I download that nearly 50 minutes of non-
Word "stuff" just to get the specific file or files for
Word? Please respond to my (unmodified)email address:
normjune23(removethis)@aol.com. Thank you.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

AFAIK, there is no way to get the (necessary) updates for Word without
downloading the entire Office SP. Only the Word portions will actually be
installed.

 

[Norm]

Suzanne, thank you for your rapid response. Questions:
First: What is "AFAIK"?
Second: You say that I should download the entire Office
SP, but that only the Word portions will be installed. In
that cse, what happens to the downloaded but uninstalled
OTHER, non-Word portions? Do they remain on the hard
drive, taking up lots of real estate (after all, it will
take 50 minutes to download that SP!)? Can they be easily
deleted? Thanks again!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

AFAIK = as far as I know

I'm not sure what happens to the unused portions, but it's possible they
aren't saved since I had to redownload patches when I installed FrontPage
after updating Office 2003. It's also possible that only the required
portions are downloaded. But I'm by no means an expert on this. You might
want to inquire in microsoft.public.office.setup.

 

[Norm]

Thanks, again, Suzanne, for your speedy reply. AOL could
not find the web site you referred me
to: "microsoft.public.office.setup." (I inserted www
before the address.) Did you (and I) leave something out?
Thanks again!

 

[Graham Mayor]

microsoft.public.office.setup is a newsgroup forum - the eaiest way to
access the newsgroups is via newsreading software such as Outlook Express -
see http://www.gmayor.com/MSNews.htm

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

Web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

As Graham said, microsoft.public.office.setup is another newsgroup on this
server. Try news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.office.setup or
look for an Office Setup NG in the same place you accessed this NG.

 

[Norm]

Thank you, Suzanne and Graham. I've found that Office
Setup site on the Newsgroup forum and have posted my
questions there. (Maybe I'll just take a chance and
invest the fifty minutes to download the entire humungous
SP . . . and see what happens -- my hard disk is not very
full!)