B
Bill Drake
Recently, the Microsoft Office Update site upgraded the Office Update
Engine. The new engine has a new "look and feel" -- it also has bugs
which prevent the new site from working properly under certain
conditions.
Details as follows:
1. There is a bug in the new Office Update interface, which interferes
with the proper installation of some of the Microsoft Office updates.
I have confirmed this repeatedly with Office 2000. I do not know
with certainty if the problem also occurs regularly with Office 2002 or
2003.
2. The bug manifests itself as an inability to apply some of the Office
2000 updates. The Updater will properly detect and download the
update patches -- but will fail to apply the patches properly and will
prompt you to revisit the Office Update site and try again. This
repeats ad-nauseum.
The solution is to download each update singly. Make note of
which update(s) do not apply properly and do all the others using
the Office Update site as usual.
3. When you are finished with all the automated updates, go back
to the Office Update site and rescan once again for required
updates. When you get the list of updates, click the "for more
information" hotlink in the update-description for one of the
required updates. A subwindow will open showing you the page
where you can download the stand-alone updater for that update.
Download the update to your Hard Disk and save the file to a
known location. Close Internet Explorer. Open Windows Explorer
and navigate to where you saved the standalone Office Update
file. Double-click the file to start the update.
The update will start and you will then be presented with a
request to insert the proper Office CD in your CD-ROM drive.
Once that request is satisfied, you will be presented with a dialog
box that tells you one of the sub-patches within the standalone
Office Update is unable to complete because something else has
already patched that file. You must then click the "Ignore" button
to allow the patch to proceed to completion. Once the patch
completes successfully, you will be informed by the patch if you
need to reboot your machine. Do so if requested.
4. Reopen Internet Explorer and go back to the Office Update website.
Rescan for updates, and you will find the update you manually
installed in Item 5 has now been removed from the list. If there are
still items on the update list which remain unpatched, repeat Step 5
above using the new item at the top of the list.
In my experience, it is common for Office 2000 users to see a failure
of Office Update when installing SP3 and then KB822035. Both failures
are caused by the incorrect sub-patch handling detailed in the above
report.
Furthermore, please note that the new Office Update site will *fail*
to install subsequent-updates in a multiple-update scenario if the
first patch in a multiple-patchset fails to install correctly.
(Eg: You've ticked more than one item at the Office Update site,
expecting the site to install multiple-patches-at-once. All
patches subsequent to the patch-that-fails will not be
installed, even though their installers actually work properly.)
I have been in touch with Microsoft regarding the problem, and
have provided them with a detailed report of the issue and how/why
the problem happens.
Hopefully, this can be fixed without too much delay.
Best I can do for now. <tm>
Bill
Engine. The new engine has a new "look and feel" -- it also has bugs
which prevent the new site from working properly under certain
conditions.
Details as follows:
1. There is a bug in the new Office Update interface, which interferes
with the proper installation of some of the Microsoft Office updates.
I have confirmed this repeatedly with Office 2000. I do not know
with certainty if the problem also occurs regularly with Office 2002 or
2003.
2. The bug manifests itself as an inability to apply some of the Office
2000 updates. The Updater will properly detect and download the
update patches -- but will fail to apply the patches properly and will
prompt you to revisit the Office Update site and try again. This
repeats ad-nauseum.
The solution is to download each update singly. Make note of
which update(s) do not apply properly and do all the others using
the Office Update site as usual.
3. When you are finished with all the automated updates, go back
to the Office Update site and rescan once again for required
updates. When you get the list of updates, click the "for more
information" hotlink in the update-description for one of the
required updates. A subwindow will open showing you the page
where you can download the stand-alone updater for that update.
Download the update to your Hard Disk and save the file to a
known location. Close Internet Explorer. Open Windows Explorer
and navigate to where you saved the standalone Office Update
file. Double-click the file to start the update.
The update will start and you will then be presented with a
request to insert the proper Office CD in your CD-ROM drive.
Once that request is satisfied, you will be presented with a dialog
box that tells you one of the sub-patches within the standalone
Office Update is unable to complete because something else has
already patched that file. You must then click the "Ignore" button
to allow the patch to proceed to completion. Once the patch
completes successfully, you will be informed by the patch if you
need to reboot your machine. Do so if requested.
4. Reopen Internet Explorer and go back to the Office Update website.
Rescan for updates, and you will find the update you manually
installed in Item 5 has now been removed from the list. If there are
still items on the update list which remain unpatched, repeat Step 5
above using the new item at the top of the list.
In my experience, it is common for Office 2000 users to see a failure
of Office Update when installing SP3 and then KB822035. Both failures
are caused by the incorrect sub-patch handling detailed in the above
report.
Furthermore, please note that the new Office Update site will *fail*
to install subsequent-updates in a multiple-update scenario if the
first patch in a multiple-patchset fails to install correctly.
(Eg: You've ticked more than one item at the Office Update site,
expecting the site to install multiple-patches-at-once. All
patches subsequent to the patch-that-fails will not be
installed, even though their installers actually work properly.)
I have been in touch with Microsoft regarding the problem, and
have provided them with a detailed report of the issue and how/why
the problem happens.
Hopefully, this can be fixed without too much delay.
Best I can do for now. <tm>
Bill