Unable to uninstall office professional edition 2003

[Austin Powers]

I am trying to uninstall Office 2003 from a Windows XP Professional w/SP3
and failing.

When ever I open a document with Microsoft Word 2003 it crashes.

Whenever I send an email with Outlook Express 6.0 it starts running the
installer, which I have to cancel (and which takes about 4 minutes to do
so).

I found the original disk, but is is scratched and if I run it, Windows blue
screens!!!!


I have downloaded the resource kit and run the removal wizard, but Office
2003 is still there!

HELP!

If I try to uninstall from the Control Panel I am told:

"The patch package 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."

I have NO IDEA what this is rambling on about. I just want to uninstall
Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 and get back to being able to
send emai.

Please help me to uninstall office 2003.

 

[Susan Ramlet]

Hi, Austin,

When you say Outlook Express runs "the installer", you mean the Windows
Installer? Outlook Express isn't part of Office, so I'm not sure why that
would resolve the issue with OE. The Word issue might be helped by repairing
your Office installation, however, it appears that isn't working.

As for your scratched installation media, here are a couple of articles that
might help:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326246
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826321

For removing Office 2003 registry entries so you can re-install it:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/295823

You refer to some wizard, and I'm not sure by your description if it's the
Windows Installer Cleanup Utility that you ran, so you might try that, if
not. Here are the instructions for using it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

Then you should be able to re-install Office from your "good" installation
media, should you choose to.

 

[DL]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/295823
maybe helps

 

[Peter Foldes]

Also use this to fix the installer problem and then post back about Word

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

 

[Austin Powers]

I had already looked on Google and found this information, but the
'uninstaller' only seems to know about two DLLs, which are to do with
speech, so it does not help at all.

 

[DL]

The utility removes the installer info

Are you able to copy your cd to hd using run/command line commands?

 

[Austin Powers]

Yes, I have already copied the contendts of the CD to my hard drive BUT when
I run it, all I EVER see is the darned message about the 'patch package',
and that is where I am stuck. IF ONLY I COULD GET RID OF THIS PATCH
PACKAGE, WHATEVER THAT MIGHT BE.

Is there any log file that shows me what the 'patch package' is, so that I
can uninstall or deleted it or do what ever it takes to obliterate it from
my computer so that I can get on and continue to use it.

 

[DL]

That error is explained in the link I posted, the uninstall clean up tool
should be used to remove all office 2003 entries

 

[Austin Powers]

I ran the tool, and it did not fix it.

That error is explained in the link I posted, the uninstall clean up tool
should be used to remove all office 2003 entries

 

[DL]

The tool only removes the installer entries, which under normal circumstance
would allow you to reinstall Office, & then uninstall it successfully

 

[Austin Powers]

Do you have any suggestions? How can I either find out which 'patch
package' is the offender, or manually remove Office 2003?

 

[DL]

Package Patch err is, as far as I'm aware, caused by the installer files, as
indicated in the KB link
Under some circumstances, usually related to an o/s install, iffy memory can
cause problems.
www.memtest.org have a download, bootable cd/floppy that will test memory,
generally its usually neccesary to run the test for several hours, though of
course it may find problems in the first pass

 

[Austin Powers]

I ran that over night...no problems.

Is there any kind of log file that will tell me which 'patch package' is the
offendiong one so I can simply delete it in safe mode?