MS Office Update - SP2 serious flaw / web site offers no support

[Greg]

For whoever at MS cares about their poor performace,

A. The Office 2003 SP2 package is seriously flawed.
The office update tool lists 3 updates for my system
1. The Office 2003 SP2 package
2. office update (KB907417)
3. Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB 905648)

When installing all these products or any selected individually, the
installation errors out with "installation unsuccessful"

Additionally the window automatic updates attempts to install these products
every time I shut my machine down. The Update KB887980 is listed in place of
the Office SP2 identified.
Not only is this annoying and time wasting, it exposes systems to security
holes.
This problem has occured repreatedly over the last several months. When the
manual installation fails, at times it propts to report they problem, which I
do but there has been no repsonse by microsoft.
The automatic installation has failed in excess of 15 times without change.
If an error occurs repeatedly by an automatic installation, I would expect
that microsoft would have a mechanism in place for addressing proble.

B. Additionally the microsoft website is very cumbersome for reporting
problems. Perhaps due to the magnitude and volume of problems with micorsoft
products you cannot provide adequate customer service. This is not
acceptable. There should be a mechanism for reporting problems that does not
cost $35 per instance. I will not pay you money to diagnose your problems.




----------------
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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...0ceab1a2257e&dg=microsoft.public.officeupdate

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Use the administrative full-file SP-2 option.

--
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, Greg asked:

| For whoever at MS cares about their poor performace,
|
| A. The Office 2003 SP2 package is seriously flawed.
| The office update tool lists 3 updates for my system
| 1. The Office 2003 SP2 package
| 2. office update (KB907417)
| 3. Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB 905648)
|
| When installing all these products or any selected individually, the
| installation errors out with "installation unsuccessful"
|
| Additionally the window automatic updates attempts to install these
| products every time I shut my machine down. The Update KB887980 is
| listed in place of the Office SP2 identified.
| Not only is this annoying and time wasting, it exposes systems to
| security holes.
| This problem has occured repreatedly over the last several months.
| When the manual installation fails, at times it propts to report they
| problem, which I do but there has been no repsonse by microsoft.
| The automatic installation has failed in excess of 15 times without
| change. If an error occurs repeatedly by an automatic installation, I
| would expect that microsoft would have a mechanism in place for
| addressing proble.
|
| B. Additionally the microsoft website is very cumbersome for
| reporting problems. Perhaps due to the magnitude and volume of
| problems with micorsoft products you cannot provide adequate customer
| service. This is not acceptable. There should be a mechanism for
| reporting problems that does not cost $35 per instance. I will not
| pay you money to diagnose your problems.
|
|
|
|
| ----------------
| This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
| suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click
| the "I Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the
| button, follow this link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft
| Web-based Newsreader and then click "I Agree" in the message pane.
|
|
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...0ceab1a2257e&dg=microsoft.public.officeupdate

 

[A. Jones]

I have a similar problem to the one described - only difference is that in
my case it does not try to install the patches on shutdown.
The installation has been failing with a simple message "Installation
Unsuccessful" for a few months now

I have tried to toggle between the 'larger' and 'smaller' files in the
automatic update page's options.
I have also downloaded the full file install and get the same result.

I have upgraded the MS Installer version to the one recommended, and checked
the registry settings for the path of the installation source

Please help

Thanks


"Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"

Use the administrative full-file SP-2 option.

--
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, Greg asked:

| For whoever at MS cares about their poor performace,
|
| A. The Office 2003 SP2 package is seriously flawed.
| The office update tool lists 3 updates for my system
| 1. The Office 2003 SP2 package
| 2. office update (KB907417)
| 3. Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB 905648)
|
| When installing all these products or any selected individually, the
| installation errors out with "installation unsuccessful"
|
| Additionally the window automatic updates attempts to install these
| products every time I shut my machine down. The Update KB887980 is
| listed in place of the Office SP2 identified.
| Not only is this annoying and time wasting, it exposes systems to
| security holes.
| This problem has occured repreatedly over the last several months.
| When the manual installation fails, at times it propts to report they
| problem, which I do but there has been no repsonse by microsoft.
| The automatic installation has failed in excess of 15 times without
| change. If an error occurs repeatedly by an automatic installation, I
| would expect that microsoft would have a mechanism in place for
| addressing proble.
|
| B. Additionally the microsoft website is very cumbersome for
| reporting problems. Perhaps due to the magnitude and volume of
| problems with micorsoft products you cannot provide adequate customer
| service. This is not acceptable. There should be a mechanism for
| reporting problems that does not cost $35 per instance. I will not
| pay you money to diagnose your problems.
|
|
|
|
| ----------------
| This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
| suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click
| the "I Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the
| button, follow this link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft
| Web-based Newsreader and then click "I Agree" in the message pane.
|
|
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...0ceab1a2257e&dg=microsoft.public.officeupdate

 

[sheryl]

For Greg:

I too, like many others I'm sure, have had the same problem. I've downloaded
the update KB907417, and while it does download, it fails to install, and I
get the message "the update cannot be applied". No reason, just that. The
update is a "Full File" too

Not to mention that the Office SP2 update won't install either. Plus it
takes longer to shut down, because my PC is saying "installing update 1 of
1"before it does.

What's worse - even the techincal people at Dell (who installed the Office
Pro program), can't figure it out either.

I don't feel I should pay $50 for a program that's not quite 6 months old,
and it's not even updating like it should.

I may add that I have Ad-Aware and McAfee programs, which i check things on
a regualr basis - no viruses as of yet.

Finally, I've posted this question on this forum site numerous times, and
I've YET to get a straight answer. Or ANY answer for that matter.

Is my office pro 2003 SP 2 a lemon? My PC's almost 6 months old. All my
other programs work great.

So you're not alone.

 

[sheryl]

I meant $50 to get technical support for a product only 6 months old! I also
have deleted cookies, temp files, etc.

 

[Larry Kahm]

For every one reading this thread and anyone else that has a problem
installing the Office XP updates - I may have a solution.

I was bothered by this "download success/installation failure" phenomenon
for a while a few weeks ago and let it pass. I revisited it today and I
again experienced an installation failure of the three files.

I used Google to search for the hex error message. That led me to a KB
article which had some pertinent information:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884298. This points to another KB article
that lists the MS product numbers used in the registry
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832672/ and this gave me my first clue that
something was wrong. Because while my download key was correct, the
installation source location was wrong.

// aside start - sarcasm on

KB 884298 also points to another KB article
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884290/) which contains some really
terrific - but ultimately useless - information. To wit:
Locate the update log files
All client updates for Microsoft Office 2003 create log files in the
following folder:
drive:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp\OHotfix
..
..<several paragraphs later>
..
Note When you install an update from the Microsoft Office Update Web site,
an installation log file is not created.

Oh, so I guess searching for a file on my hard drive that never gets created
is a good use of my time. grrrr....

// aside end - sarcasm off

Throughout all of this, I managed to get to the bottom of the original KB
article and found this gem, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830168/, which
discusses the original, saved Office installation files.

So let me ask all of you: After you installed Office, did you delete the
installation files? Or perhaps you saved them, but then later deleted them
with Disk Cleanup? If so, this could be one part of the problem.

Here's the solution: Microsoft has a utility called "Local Installation
Source Tool" which is available here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...a3-695b-42c3-9045-b812ba0fed3e&displaylang=en

Download this file, expand it into its own directory. Read the help file.
Run the utility.

In my case, my registry settings were (somehow erroneously) pointing to
E:\MSOCache\All Users\blah blah blah. I didn't even have the hidden
MSOCache folder on my hard drive (thank you MS for the Disk Cleanup
tool...).

I used the LISTool to "move" the Office entries to C:\ and this task
completed successfully. (Note: the log files are placed in the hidden
folder, c:\documents and settings\user name\local settings\temp - I suggest
you read through them if the routine doesn't work.)

Next, I used the LISTool to create the local installation source for
Office - that way I wouldn't have to keep searching for the @#$%^& CDs for
any future update. This took about 4 minutes.

Finally, I launched Windows Update. It indicated I had already downloaded
the files, so I clicked "Install" and, amazingly enough, the installation
routine ran through to completion!

I really can't believe that it was this hard, yet so easy. Somehow, someone
at Microsoft really ought to take a look at this issue a little bit more
closely to ensure that there is a "fool-proof" method of applying an SP
update.

Hope this gave you enough information to let you solve your own problems!

Larry Kahm
Heliotropic Systems, Inc.

 

[A. Jones]

Larry deserves a medal!

The key is the "Local Installation ource Tool" - the disk cleanup wizard,
thinks that the local installation files should be removed - if you remove
them the updates will no longer install

All I had to do is install this tool,
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...a3-695b-42c3-9045-b812ba0fed3e&displaylang=en),
and choose the option to delete and disable LIS if you don't want the local
files....

Now everything works fine. What amazes me is that this thread is one of
dozens if not hundreds of newsgroup complaints about this problem, and no
one from MS was able to provide this resource!

 

[Trojan]

Agree with everything that's been said above.

I eventually got around the problem after many attempts at installing SP2,
by loading my original product CD into the CD drive prior to installation.
This worked a treat.