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Windows Installer launches when opening Word or Excel

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Branlon

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May 25, 2000
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Under Windows 2000Pro, every time I open Word 2000 or Excel 2000, the Windows Installer launches and re-installs the app before opening it. Any hints??
Ran the "Repair Office" utility but no fix.
 
Yes, you need to be logged in as "Administrator". And the important thing to note is to login to the local domain NOT THE NETWORK DOMAIN and then after the install, open up Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, etc. Then close the programs. Now you can login as other users and you should be fine.

 
I don't have different domains, I don't think. Like I said I am on a home computer. In any case I don't have a "Domain" selection at my login. Can you explain further?

I would also like to know "why" it matters if I am on as "administrator" or as "Dawn" if Dawn IS an administrator. What are the fundamental differnces? I need to be able to explain to my boyfriend who insists there is no difference. I created a 3rd account, myself, Dawn1 also as administrator and everything works great. Even problems I wasn't trying to fix yet are fixed. Should I still uninstall from Dawn and reinstall in adminstrator?

Thanks Zoey.

Dawn
 
Hi Dawn,

Well, i'm just speaking in my situation I login to a Network Domain. In your case it is different. You don't login to a network domain, you are just logging in locally. So disregard the Network part. But if you are having issues where the Windows installer launches on you each time you open word or excel than yes I would deinstall office 2000 than reinstall office 2000 logged in as "Administrator". Then login as another user to see if the windows installer runs each time you open word or excel. When I ran into this problem the first time I was logged in as a user with Admin privleges and I ran into this problem. Even though you added a Dawn user as Administrator you may still need to be logged in as Administrator when you install office. Why you have to do this? I have no idea. It makes no sense. I do not have an answer for that. I just know it worked for me after I installed the program logged in as Administrator. Maybe it is the same process on a home network.

Good luck! Let me know how you make out.
 
Well like I said, it works fine now. I didn't install on the administrator account, but I created another account and it works fine. (it was Outlook for me)

Anyway, Thanks for ALL of your help.

Dawn
 
Ok another update. I still had the windows installer starting up when I would use a wizard or special feature in office. And yes I click on "Install all from my computer" when installing office. Here was the problem. I actually had traces of two different Office programs (Premium 2000and Professional 2000) in Add/Remove Programs. I don't know how that happened, but I think it was because I tried uninstalling one and installing the other on a different user (administrative) than I had originally used. So, I uninstalled all Office stuff. I then used a tool called Erase2000 from the Microsoft site that gets rid of most of the references in the registry of Microsoft Office. I even did a badly needed disk defrag. I then reinstalled Office and the Office Updates and everything is beautiful again. I don't know if this helps anyone but I thought I would post just in case. The moral of the story is: Check Add/remove programs and see if there is more than one version of Office still there. :) Dawn
 
I had the same problem here and it started when I rejoined the network domain (after unjoining myself).

My local account (which was the same name before and after) lost it's local administrator identity. Once I made it an administrator in Users, I was able to open the Office Products.
 
Hey!! It's only an observation... when you Install the Office 2000, do you select RUN ALL FROM MY PC???... try this and then download anything you want... SR2, IE6, etc... Bye
 
Hello Again.
Is that work?? Let me know Dawn and Everybody

Bye Juanjo
 
I had this same problem. This is how I found this thread.
I am on a new installation of office 2000 and win2k.

My word, excel etc kept launching the installer when I opened them but I read above how someone upgraded to IE 5.5 and it helped.
Well I upgraded to IE 6 and the installer problem went away.

I dont know how but it worked.

 
Lord, this problem comes up so dang often. We have had this problem, and variations of it, on a number of computers running XP and Office 2000/2002. We have tried all the variations: installing as local admin hasn't worked yet without requiring a reinstall when the domain users logon. And that is the beach of it, because we can't run around to every machine that is used by a new user just to reinstall Outlook and setup new profiles -- it's a huge time expenditure.

We are having better luck installing Office as domain admins, but in one particular case it is not REGISTERING a complete install. But, when I use add/remove features and expand the choices they all show as being installed! I have tried using Microsoft tool MSICUU2.exe which is a cleanup tool, but it does not show any evidence of leftover installs.

HELP HELP HELP!

It seems to me this happens more frequently when Office is upgraded AND windows is upgraded too. It seems like a registry problem that we just can't get undone.
 
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