Word Professional Won't Install Over Word Standard

[Snowcat]

I have Word/Office Standard 2003 installed. I run the installation of Office
Professional 2003 and install Word Excel, etc. I start Word and it still
says Word Standard.

Any idea how to fix this? When I run my application that needs the VSTO
support that is in Word Professional, I get the following error:


Exception: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException
Message: This method or property is available only in Microsoft Office
Professional Edition 2003.
Source: Microsoft Word
at
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.IAppInfoDocument.SetDocument(String fileName, Byte[] bytes, FileAccess access)
at Microsoft.Office.Tools.OfficeAppInfoDocument.GetOfficeDocument()
at Microsoft.Office.Tools.OfficeAppInfoDocument.EnsureDocument()
at Microsoft.Office.Tools.OfficeAppInfoDocument.WriteItem(String element,
String id, Byte[] item)
at
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.AppInfo.WriteManifest(IAppInfo appInfo, String manifest)
at
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.Customizer.CustomizeDocument()
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.Customizer.Customize()
at
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.ServerDocument.AddCustomization(String
documentPath, String assemblyName, String deploymentManifestPath, String
applicationVersion, Boolean makePathsRelative)
at NoteControl.RemoteDocumentManager.EnsureDocumentAssemblyLoaded(String
documentPath)

 

[Guest]

What happened during the Office Setup for Professional? Did it run correctly
or did it error? If you run Office Setup again from the Control Panel,
Add/Remove Programs, what does it say is installed?

 

[Snowcat]

Terry,

Thanks for your response.

I have worked with the two users on this and found that:
-the installation of Office Professional - with Standard already there -
completes however when you look in the 'Add/Remove programs' list BOTH the
Standard and the Professional are listed. Also:
-in this situation when my application starts Word it starts the Standard one
-when the user 'Removes' (uninstalls) Word Standard then my application
starts the correct version of Word.

So in the situation where the user has multiple copies of Word, can my
application start the Professional version and if so how can I ensure that it
does not start the wrong one?

Thanks.

What happened during the Office Setup for Professional? Did it run correctly
or did it error? If you run Office Setup again from the Control Panel,
Add/Remove Programs, what does it say is installed?

--
Terry Farrell - Word MVP

I have Word/Office Standard 2003 installed. I run the installation of
Office
Professional 2003 and install Word Excel, etc. I start Word and it still
says Word Standard.

Any idea how to fix this? When I run my application that needs the VSTO
support that is in Word Professional, I get the following error:


Exception: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException
Message: This method or property is available only in Microsoft Office
Professional Edition 2003.
Source: Microsoft Word
at
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.IAppInfoDocument.SetDocument(String
fileName, Byte[] bytes, FileAccess access)
at Microsoft.Office.Tools.OfficeAppInfoDocument.GetOfficeDocument()
at Microsoft.Office.Tools.OfficeAppInfoDocument.EnsureDocument()
at Microsoft.Office.Tools.OfficeAppInfoDocument.WriteItem(String
element,
String id, Byte[] item)
at
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.AppInfo.WriteManifest(IAppInfo
appInfo, String manifest)
at
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.Customizer.CustomizeDocument()
at
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.Customizer.Customize()
at
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Runtime.ServerDocument.AddCustomization(String
documentPath, String assemblyName, String deploymentManifestPath, String
applicationVersion, Boolean makePathsRelative)
at NoteControl.RemoteDocumentManager.EnsureDocumentAssemblyLoaded(String
documentPath)

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Snowcat,

Adding multiple Office editions of the same series (even if the same language) isn't recommended. There is a side effect you've run
into that complicates things in that the Word 2003 versions for Office Pro and Office standard varied in their support for some XML
features.

Is there any reason to not remove the Office 2003 standard edition at this point, then do a repair/reinstall of MS Office 2003
Professional Edition?

=============
Terry,

Thanks for your response.

I have worked with the two users on this and found that:
-the installation of Office Professional - with Standard already there -
completes however when you look in the 'Add/Remove programs' list BOTH the
Standard and the Professional are listed. Also:
-in this situation when my application starts Word it starts the Standard one
-when the user 'Removes' (uninstalls) Word Standard then my application
starts the correct version of Word.

So in the situation where the user has multiple copies of Word, can my
application start the Professional version and if so how can I ensure that it
does not start the wrong one?

Thanks. >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Snowcat]

Hi Bob,

Thanks so much for your prompt reply.

And the short answer is no, there isn't any reason that prevents the user
from removing the Standard edition. Except that they don't know that they
should do that. Should not the Office installer give them the heads up or
take care of it? Will that happen with Office/Word 2007?

But my larger problem is that since the installation of Word Pro is outside
the domain of my application, I need to be able deal with what I find on the
user's machine. (I guess it would be great if there were VSTO support in all
versions of Word 2003 & 2007. :>) So I tell the user to buy and install Word
Pro - and they do that - but it doesn't remove Word Standard first, then my
application crashes because it starts the wrong version. There must be a way
to identify the Word Pro version so that my app can start that one instead of
Word Standard. Any insights on this?

Of course, I can advise the user to uninstall Word Standard first, but I'm
shy about advising clients how to manage their Microsoft applications. Am I
too shy?

Best regards,

Snowcat

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Snowcat,

No, the MS Office installer won't remove anything that's a 'crossgrade' (within the same series) nor does it replace an app from an
older version if it doesn't have an equivalent in the new version. You can choose to remove the standard edition as part of a custom
setup in a deployment scenario.

All of the versions of Word would, by default use the same Winword.exe file and you could find the location of the right one by
looking in the registry, but since both of these are Word v11 (2003) it gets a bit tricker and you could end up have to look for
specific GUIDs, but basically, having two Office Editions in the same place can confuse the MS Installer when it trys to update as
well, so it's best practice usually to remove a 'smaller' edition, if moving to a larger one (MS Office 2007 allows folks to apply
any 2007 upgrade app package to any installed Office 2007 app/suite product [first time they've allowed crossgrades <g> - so that's
good news for the customers but may bring some other oddities into play]

Word 2003 standalone has all of the XML capabilities that Word in Office 2003 Professional does, BTW. Cindy may be able to post
something here about methods that she uses to test for Word Pro being installed to run XML features, but testing also for, oh by the
way is there another version of Word 2003 here, may not be a common practice [i.e. folks don't often assume someone may have
purchased and installed two copies of a similar item <g>]. You may also want to post in the Office XML and/or VSTO newsgroups on
these questions as well.

Word 2007 doesn't (as far as we know) make the same distinction about XML capabilities between Word products (as the new file format
Word uses is XML based, it would be a bit odd <g>) but it does separate other features based on retail vs Volume License products as
far as tying into other MS products for features such as Information Rights Management.

================
Hi Bob,

Thanks so much for your prompt reply.

And the short answer is no, there isn't any reason that prevents the user
from removing the Standard edition. Except that they don't know that they
should do that. Should not the Office installer give them the heads up or
take care of it? Will that happen with Office/Word 2007?

But my larger problem is that since the installation of Word Pro is outside
the domain of my application, I need to be able deal with what I find on the
user's machine. (I guess it would be great if there were VSTO support in all
versions of Word 2003 & 2007. :>) So I tell the user to buy and install Word
Pro - and they do that - but it doesn't remove Word Standard first, then my
application crashes because it starts the wrong version. There must be a way
to identify the Word Pro version so that my app can start that one instead of
Word Standard. Any insights on this?

Of course, I can advise the user to uninstall Word Standard first, but I'm
shy about advising clients how to manage their Microsoft applications. Am I
too shy?

Best regards,

Snowcat >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Snowcat]

Thanks for your reply Bob.

I think I will take your suggestion and not go down the road of trying to
handle dual version of Word on the machine. Instead, if our install detects
Word Pro, and the app crashes on start up with the complaint that VSTO is
missing, we may try to catch it and put up a message to ensure that only Word
Pro is listed in 'Add/Remove Programs'.

I appreciate all your help on this!

Now let's get back on that snowboard..

Hi Snowcat,

No, the MS Office installer won't remove anything that's a 'crossgrade' (within the same series) nor does it replace an app from an
older version if it doesn't have an equivalent in the new version. You can choose to remove the standard edition as part of a custom
setup in a deployment scenario.

All of the versions of Word would, by default use the same Winword.exe file and you could find the location of the right one by
looking in the registry, but since both of these are Word v11 (2003) it gets a bit tricker and you could end up have to look for
specific GUIDs, but basically, having two Office Editions in the same place can confuse the MS Installer when it trys to update as
well, so it's best practice usually to remove a 'smaller' edition, if moving to a larger one (MS Office 2007 allows folks to apply
any 2007 upgrade app package to any installed Office 2007 app/suite product [first time they've allowed crossgrades <g> - so that's
good news for the customers but may bring some other oddities into play]

Word 2003 standalone has all of the XML capabilities that Word in Office 2003 Professional does, BTW. Cindy may be able to post
something here about methods that she uses to test for Word Pro being installed to run XML features, but testing also for, oh by the
way is there another version of Word 2003 here, may not be a common practice [i.e. folks don't often assume someone may have
purchased and installed two copies of a similar item <g>]. You may also want to post in the Office XML and/or VSTO newsgroups on
these questions as well.

Word 2007 doesn't (as far as we know) make the same distinction about XML capabilities between Word products (as the new file format
Word uses is XML based, it would be a bit odd <g>) but it does separate other features based on retail vs Volume License products as
far as tying into other MS products for features such as Information Rights Management.

================
Hi Bob,

Thanks so much for your prompt reply.

And the short answer is no, there isn't any reason that prevents the user
from removing the Standard edition. Except that they don't know that they
should do that. Should not the Office installer give them the heads up or
take care of it? Will that happen with Office/Word 2007?

But my larger problem is that since the installation of Word Pro is outside
the domain of my application, I need to be able deal with what I find on the
user's machine. (I guess it would be great if there were VSTO support in all
versions of Word 2003 & 2007. :>) So I tell the user to buy and install Word
Pro - and they do that - but it doesn't remove Word Standard first, then my
application crashes because it starts the wrong version. There must be a way
to identify the Word Pro version so that my app can start that one instead of
Word Standard. Any insights on this?

Of course, I can advise the user to uninstall Word Standard first, but I'm
shy about advising clients how to manage their Microsoft applications. Am I
too shy?

Best regards,

Snowcat >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*