"Unable to check for updates" - if OneNote installed, this may hel

[Dave Jenkins]

As many in this community have experienced, the sudden inability to check for
Office updates is a frustrating problem, and the solutions proposed here and
elsewhere are of the "try this, and if that doesn't work, try this" variety.

I spent a miserable 11 hours yesterday (including 3 unproductive hours on
the phone with MS Support) working through this situation. I
uninstalled/reinstalled Office 2003 3 times (including the SP2 update); I
religiously followed the suggestions at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=304498 multiple times. I found a
suggestion for manual deletion of several Office entries in the Registry and
applied those - nothing seemed to work

After one of those attempts, I was cruising through the Control
Panel->Add/Remove Programs, and I noticed that OneNote is really listed as MS
Office program. Even though I had uninstalled Office, per se, the OneNote
icon was still on my desktop (even though I had never reinstalled it) so
there were obviously still vestiges of it around someplace. When I tried to
bring it up, it was unable to do so, and so I got to wondering if OneNote
install history wasn't the cause of the problem, since Office installs had
been cleaned up (multiple times).

Thinking that I would reinstall it, I tried to uninsstall it, but it barfed,
asking me for the program source (which I had). I therefore used the
Installer Clean-up Utility to uninstall OneNote, and then reinstalled it.

Voila! Not only could I bring up OneNote successfully, but I could now
check for Office updates!

In summary, if you're going through the various suggested steps for clearing
this pesky problem, and you have other Office capablity installed (such as
OneNote), you may need to uninstall/reinstall that, too, before you're
successful.

Hope this helps someone.

 

[Lawrence Garvin \(MVP\)]

In summary, if you're going through the various suggested steps for
clearing
this pesky problem, and you have other Office capablity installed (such as
OneNote), you may need to uninstall/reinstall that, too, before you're
successful.

So, perhaps, as we suggest to people to "Uninstall Office", we should be
explicit and say "Uninstall ALL Office Programs".... including those not a
part of Office 2003 itself, such as OneNote, Project, Visio, and depending
on the edition of Office installed, perhaps even Publisher.

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Hi Lawrence:

Well, it would have saved me a certain amount of grief had I thought of (or
known the necessity for) doing it sooner. It certainly couldn't hurt to be
more explicit, I guess.

Not knowing the details behind the real problem, would you recommend
*always* uninstalling/reinstalling all Office programs, or would you say,
"Gee - if it didn't work after uninstalling/reinstalling Office, you need to
consider uninstalling/reinstalling other Office programs (such as OneNote,
Viso, etc.), if present."? That is, is it your feeling that the best thing
to do is uninstall all the programs right off the bat, or does the problem
sometimes clear after uninstalling Office, even though other Office suite
programs may also be installed?

--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

In summary, if you're going through the various suggested steps for
clearing
this pesky problem, and you have other Office capablity installed (such as
OneNote), you may need to uninstall/reinstall that, too, before you're
successful.

So, perhaps, as we suggest to people to "Uninstall Office", we should be
explicit and say "Uninstall ALL Office Programs".... including those not a
part of Office 2003 itself, such as OneNote, Project, Visio, and depending
on the edition of Office installed, perhaps even Publisher.

 

[Lawrence Garvin \(MVP\)]

Hi Lawrence:

Well, it would have saved me a certain amount of grief had I thought of
(or
known the necessity for) doing it sooner. It certainly couldn't hurt to
be
more explicit, I guess.

Point taken, and quite valid. I wasn't being facetious about us who give the
advice to be more 'aware' that there may be additional "office" products
installed other than just the core edition.

Not knowing the details behind the real problem, would you recommend
*always* uninstalling/reinstalling all Office programs, or would you say,
"Gee - if it didn't work after uninstalling/reinstalling Office, you need
to
consider uninstalling/reinstalling other Office programs (such as OneNote,
Viso, etc.), if present."?

I think the key point here is "not knowing the details", but, based on your
observations and experience, and lacking specific data that would
contraindicate the need, I believe -my- recommedation in the future will be
to uninstall -all- "office" products, if such an action is recommended.

That is, is it your feeling that the best thing
to do is uninstall all the programs right off the bat, or does the problem
sometimes clear after uninstalling Office, even though other Office suite
programs may also be installed?

Well, ideally, uninstallation shouldn't be required at all. And, presumably,
uninstallation of one product should not be dependent upon the status of
another. However, where the Windows Installer is concerned, and specifically
with Office 2003 products, it may be that the -best- solution when
uninstalling any Office 2003 product for diagnostics/repair purposes will be
to uninstall -all- of them.

So, I guess, for the time being, and lacking any specific contraindications,
my advice, subsequent to this discussion, will be to uninstall -all- Office
2003 products if uninstallation is a step deemed appropriate to a solution.