Office 2003 Pro updates

[Toni]

I attended IU for school and was able to download Office 2003 Pro through the
school since they have a contract with MS. However, I am unable to download
automatically or manually the updates. I keep getting the following error
message:
The Office Update site is unable to check for updates on this computer. This
may be happening because of one of the following reasons:

You do not have administrative privileges for this computer.
There is a network problem and the detection catalog used by the Office
Update site failed to download. Go back to the Downloads home page and try
running detection again.
Windows Installer patch files (.MSP files) from previously applied Office
updates are missing from the \Windows\Installer hidden directory on your
computer. MSP files are stored on your computer after update installation
completes because they need to be referenced for future update operations. If
the files are missing you will not be able to apply Office updates. You may
also be unable to uninstall Office products as a result of the same problem.
Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services for assistance.
You installed Office updates in the past and then upgraded from Windows
Installer version 1.0 to Windows Installer version 1.1. For more information
see the KB article Windows Installer May Prompt for Install Source if
Unavailable.

I have also tried to run "detect and repair" with the error message:
This patch could not be opened. Verify that the patch package exists and
that you can access it, or contact the application vendor to verify that this
is a valid Windows Installer patch package.

IU will not give support and I can't afford to pay for support through MS.
Please help!!

 

[Dev]

It looks like the Installer Patch files for the Office application are
damaged. To resolve this issue you need to reinstall Office2003 on the
computer. I am sure you'll get the same error if you try unisntalling it
from the Add/Remove programs window. Hence we need to use the "Windows
Installer Cleanup Utility" to uninstall the version of Office on the
computer. Follow the article mentioned below to successfully reinstall
Office and fix issue.

You receive the "This patch package could not be opened" error message in an
Office program -
Article ID : 295823


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;295823

BTW, hope you have the Office 2003 CD to reisntall it once you uninstall it
from the computer. ;-)

 

[Peter Foldes]

<I attended IU for school and was able to download Office 2003 Pro through the
<school since they have a contract with MS.


I believe the above gives the answer to your issue. IU probably had a given download from MS where the files for further Upgrade would have had to be done through their IT department.

 

[Toni]

thanks...this worked!!! i appreciate you putting the article with the post
because i didn't have the cleanup utility. thanks so much

toni