Office Keeps Re-Installing When I Try To Open Word, Excel...etc.

I have been slowly moving away from Microsoft Software as it is increasing becoming a fact that when their software doesn't work (which is becoming the norm of late) your on your own, or you have to pay them for the support to put it right. As I said earlier they will go under if they keep this up, if you look at history even the biggest go under when their own high and might attitude exceeds the worth of their products. Espcially when the free software that is begining to come on the internet is so good

Sorry to here that you gave up Bob. I too have wasted a fair amount of time on this problem.

Microsoft should investigate these problems more seriously and provide solutions. I never understood the rationale behind denying the owner and user of a computer and its software full access rights (fair rights of use?). Something to do with "licensing" and paranoia over copyright I suppose.

Microsoft should issue a registry resetting tool giving full access rights to the administrators group to all registry entries.

To be honest I have given up, I don't have the time to try and fix something that Microsoft feel that they don't have an obligation to fix after charging their customers such high prices for what has in my case turned out to be almost unusable software. So I have un-installed office and have moved to Openoffice which is working really well with no hassles and it comes free with free updates. I suspect microsoft will come to their senses just before they go out of business like so many before them.

Bob

This problem appears to be a registry permissions problem. Office changes access permissions to certain registry folders to prevent changes by the PC user, administrators and system. Different versions of Office do this in different ways. The result is that after several version of Office are installed, the software can no longer access the registry to configure and hence repeats configuration each time it starts. Office 2003 seems to be the worst culprit. Microsoft should have fixed this.

Repairing the registry or attempting to reset permissions will not work because access to Office folders are blocked for changes.

The only solution that I have found that works is to do the following:

• Remove all versions of Office. If this is not possible try System Restore to restore to a previous date without Office. As a last resort use the Microsoft Office Removal Tools (or Fixits). Be warned these can mess up your OS.
• Disable or remove any AV software. If you have .Net installed, remove it.
• Reboot the machine into Windows 7 (or Vista) and perform a repair install. To do this insert the Windows DVD, make sure it matches the version you have installed and have your license key ready. Start install and when you get the screen to choose upgrade or new install, choose upgrade. Windows should install itself over the existing installation keeping all programs and files intact. However you will loose any Windows updates. These will have to be reinstalled later.
• Machine will reboot into Windows, enter your license key and reactivate.
• Proceed to install the version of Office you want, plus reinstall your AV software and .Net.

This should fix the problem