Off 2000 installation problem

[atadbitslow]

I have a NT 4.0 workstation that I recently tried to install Office 2000, but keep Office 97 on the system also. I redirected the install to a different directory. During the installation the system hung up. I had to shut down the system. When it was booted back up, certain parts of Office 2000 were working, but not all. So I wanted to run the repair install or uninstall then install it again, but each time I tried to run the install from the CD, I got a Windows Installer message box that says another installation is running and I need to finish that one first. OK is my only option. There is nothing showing up in Task manager and there is not CD in the drive. The system appears to think it is still running the office 2000 install when it hung up. How can I clear this up to do a repair install or uninstall??
Thanks!

 

[Hasit]

Why do you want to keep Office 97? All the products in 2000 apart from Access are backward compatible.

To keep Access 97 have a look at the Microsoft website for advice on either migrating Access 97 dbs to 2000 or keeping an instance of Access 97 at the same time as the 2000 version.

In any case, the best thing to do is to remove Office 97 from your system and start again, as it sounds like the registry has got screwed up.

 

[atadbitslow]

Thanks for your reply--

It is actually only Access 97 that we need to keep because our database has not be converted yet. And I read all about keeping Access 97 while installing 2000 and have done it successfully on several other machines.

The problem with the NT system is that it thinks that an installation is still running, so I can't install or uninstall anything! The installation did not create a log file either for me to see why it hung up--

 

[Hasit]

I can't think of why its gone bananas. You might have to take a drastic approach and reboot the machine if you haven't already done so.

If you have already rebooted, you might want to take a look at the registry for Office 2000 entries.

 

[atadbitslow]

Thanks, yes, I have rebooted several times.....

I figured it was a registry issue, but i was hoping someone had a quick fix...seeing that I didn't make a backup of the registry......

 

[Hasit]

Oops!

OK, have a look at this link, for a product called System Mechanic. It does a bunch of stuff including cleaning up your registry:

http://www.5star-shareware.com/Utilities/Diagnostics/system-mechanic.html

Good luck!

 

[atadbitslow]

Thanks a bunch--I'll check it out!

 

[Hasit]

One other thing, take a look at my posts in thread68-161031

 

[atadbitslow]

I did read up about the setup logs, but in my case setup did not create them--I searched the whole drive --

Is there any chance this problem could have been caused by having a partitioned drive? The drive I was installing to is partitioned............

I'm also a bit nervous to try the System Mechanic product you referred me too--

Is there any other way to get the problems out of the registry??

Thanks!

 

[Hasit]

Partitioned drives should not make any difference to the logs being created or the installation going wrong.

I can kinda understand your nervousness with System Mechanic as I am not a registry guru. Having said that the tools don't go fixing or changing anything unless you ask them to. So you may want to use it to report what the problems are before you take any action.

Microsoft provide a registry "fixer", which does a similar job, although perhaps not as thorough. For details on how to use it, have a look at:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q183/8/87.ASP

You could export the registry and look for the installation entry. Typically, it will be under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft.......

I am sorry, but thats pretty much where my knowledge ends. If you are still in deep trouble, let me know, and I'll ask a friend of mine who is a guru, but cannot get access to the Internet (company policy!)

 

[Hasit]

Maddieboo, sorry, I gave you a link for Win98 in may last post. I did some more digging regarding the tool I really wanted to suggest called Regclean (from Microsoft). You can download it here:

http://www.chip-online.com/downloads_updates/downloads_updates_3052.html

and read about how to undo registry problems when installing Office 2K here:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q299/9/58.ASP

 

[atadbitslow]

Boy, you sure are helpful!!

Thanks so much--I'll look into all of the above---won't get back to it til Tues next week......

Thanks again!

 

[Hasit]

Try to be helpful. I like MS products, but when they screw up, they do it very well! So any help I can give, I'm more than happy to.

Good luck.