Office 2007 Compatibility Pack Installation Problems

[jwgraham]

Hello,
We currently use Office 2003 at our company, and are not quite at the
point to convert to Office 2007. However, we do have associates that receive
documents in Office 2007 format. Typically, installing the Office 2007
Compatibility Pack from Microsoft resolves all these issues without a
problem. Yesterday, an associate recieved a Word 2007 document, and
proceeded to attempt to open it. Much to our chagrin, instead of opening, it
gave the following error: "This is a pre-release version of the Compatibility
Pack and can open pre-release Office 2007 files only. Do you want to check
for a newer version of the Compatibility Pack?" The options are OK or Cancel.
Cancel, of course, does not open the file. OK brings you to the page to
download the pack. Despite the fact that the download pages downloads what
we've already installed, I went ahead and grabbed it anyway. I installed it
on his system. Same error. I removed it from the system, rebooted,
reinstalled it. Same error. We tried the same document on another machine
(with the same installed compatibility pack I might add), and it opens up
just fine. I'm guessing it is something local on the machine from this, but
am not sure where to go to fix it. I've tried putting the exact error in
search engines and have managed to only come up with a couple hits with
someone receiving the same error, but no one offering or knowing of any fix.
If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated

 

[mezzodiva]

Hi, jwgraham,

See if this helps:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926054/en-us

 

[jwgraham]

Mezzodiva,
Thank you for the link. I attempted this but was unable to use this
resolution. The first method, the machine does not have that particular
template to add. The second method, subkey 12 and so forth do not exist.
With this subkey and this template missing, I'm concerned that even though it
shows up in Add/Remove programs, the compatibility pack is not installing
correctly (or I'm missing something incredibly obvious ) Any other
suggestions?

 

[mezzodiva]

Does the machine that "works" have those registry subkeys? I'd be curious.

You could try uninstalling and re-installing the compatibility pack--or, you
might even try creating those subkeys manually.

 

[jwgraham]

Mezzodiva,
Sorry for taking so long to reply, long day at work so far. Well, I
drilled down on the registry on the machine that works. It has a few more of
the subkeys, but does not go all the way through (stops at Word subkey).
I've done multiple uninstall and reinstall of the compatibility pack
rebooting between each step. (And thanks for your help in puzzling this out,
I appreciate it).
--Joe

 

[mezzodiva]

So, after those multiple reinstalls, you don't get the same registry keys?
If you're comfortable editing the registry, try creating them manually to
see what happens. You can always (carefully) remove them if it doesn't
help.

Otherwise, you might want to check wth Microsoft Product Support, as there
are some differences between the machines that they may be able to help you
sort out.