Why Office 2003 keeps on saying "Preparing to install"?

[TFS]

Whenever I open an Office 2003 application (word, excel, outlook, etc), I
would get the Windows Installer dialog saying "Preparing to install". This
happens all the time.

If I'm patient enough (wait for more than 5 minutes!), this dialog would
disappear and everything works! What's this stupid thing?

I've read in some forum that this is due to multiple version of Office. But
I have only one version of Office (2003) and have never installed any old
version before.

Btw, I notice that this problem began to happen after I updated SP3!
Thanks Microsoft!

 

[mezzodiva]

Have you tried to do a repair installation of Office by re-installing it?
Sometimes this fixes registry or file problems.

 

[TFS]

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I had already tried a "detect and repair", but it failed with an error
saying something like "some files can't be found" but the stupid installer
never said whcih file can't be found!

So out of rage, I removed everything and reinstalled again and immediately
after that SP3. Now it works!

Once again, thanks Microsoft!

 

[mezzodiva]

Thanks for posting back; your answer might help someone else--(even if not
an ideal solution)