Upgrade from Office XP to Office 2003; Office XP tries to Reinstal

[Michael Ledford]

Hello!

I work in an office with 8 workstations; we recently found out that an old
employee installed pirated copies of Office XP on our workstations some time
back; when we realized the problem, we bought new copies of Office 2003 to
remedy the situation.

First I installed Office 2003 as the recommended "upgrade" install, but I
was still failing validation at the Validate Office website because my old
Office XP program was lurking in the background. Also, Outlook wouldn't come
up because it said I was trying to run two versions of Outlook side-by-side.

Next I tried completely uninstalling my Office XP and Office 2003 sets, then
reinstalling Office 2003 as a "full install." At this point, it seemed to
work fine until I tried to open an Excel file, and the "Configuring Office
XP" box came up and prompted me for my old product key. I cancelled, but
every Office file I tried to open prompted me to reinstall Office XP. Also, I
started having problems with Outlook trying to run two seperate versions
again.

Next I tried uninstalling all Office applications, running the version of
Office Clean that came with my Office 2003 disc, then reinstalling as a "full
install" but the results were identical.

I repeated the entire process logged in as the adminstrator.

I'm not sure what to try next! I don't want pirated software on our
workstations, but I can't seem to make it go away, and the desktop I'm trying
this all on is crippled Office-wise until I figure out a fix. Any ideas?

 

[Michael Ledford]

If it helps, I'm trying to install Office Professional Edition 2003, and the
old version was Office XP Professional with Frontpage

 

[DL]

When you have uniistalled, both, is there an Office10 or Office11 folder
left?
I believe you qualify for free MS support if you are unable to install a
product on a sys that meets specs

 

[Michael Ledford]

I noticed an Office 10 file floating around at one point after an install
(this was last night after my previous post, as I was retracing my steps) and
tried deleting that before reinstalling, but it came back... I've tried the
Windows INstaller Cleanup Utility now too, with no luck. The advice I'm
hearing back most often is "It's time to reformat and reinstall everything!'
but I really hope it doesn't come to that...

 

[DL]

Well Office10 folder is OfficeXP, so if you are uninstalling OfficeXP, then
using Office2003 cd, its bizare as to how this folder is being recreated

 

[Michael Ledford]

It's weird, and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with my Office 2003
install - even if I just uninstall Office Xp and leave it alone (as if I
didn't want to run Office at all), Office XP always comes back after a reboot.

 

[DL]

Then one has to assume theres something running on reboot.
If an employee installed a pirate version, what else might he have done?
I have to say I dont think I would be comfortable running these PC's without
doing a complete clean installation of win

 

[Michael Ledford]

Figured it out!

It turns out that our old IT guy had deployed Office XP on the server, and
everytime I logged into the network from a workstation, the server was
sending install-on-demand shortcuts to our desktops. We called in a
professional, and he's taking care of dismantling it now.

Thanks!