Help, please! Problem with installation of Microsoft Office software

[--mom--]

Well, here I am ... back again .... New computer, new problems!

 

Background: About a month ago, my daughter's computer stopped working. With the help of the awesome Good Samaratins in the Forum, we tried to fix it but eventually found that sometimes computers simply cannot be fixed. At the suggestion of forum members, we DID manage to save her hard drive from the laptop into a case....so, thank you all again very much for telling us that was possible! :-)

 

She went out to Best Buy with her boyfriend (rather than me) and bought a Samsung laptop with a Windows 7 Operating System. It did not come with Microsoft Office. Within the family, we have Microsoft Works Suite 2003 (which came with our XP OS desktop) and Microsoft Works Suite 2007 (which came from a Windows 7 OS).

 

She tried installing the 2003 software and ran into an error message. It was then that she was told that she needed the software for Windows 7 OS. She got that yesterday, tried installing it and got an error message that the installation was corrupt. She tried to remove it, but it cannot be uninstalled. [The error message that shows up is: Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 encountered an error during setup. ERROR 25004.config.Xml not specified. A valid config.Xml must be authorized when deploying '(null)'.]

 

Using the original software disc, I managed to uninstall the 2003 Works Suite; so, as far as I can tell, that shouldn't be interfering.

 

I then tried (both...at different times) installing AND/OR uninstalling the 2007 Microsoft Works Suite, but it won't allow me to do either. It gives me an error message about the setup being corrupt, tells me to put the cd in and try reinstalling, appears to be installing and then gives me that Error 25004 again.

 

And, just in case anyone is wondering, .... Yes, I have the original 'codes'.

 

Does anyone know what we're doing wrong? ... or, what we could do now?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

[sunny staines]

error 25004 means the licence code is not valid for the machine you are installing on.

 

cause its oem for another computer

 

or

 

pirate software

 

if none of the above ring microsoft support and explain the problem they are normally very helpful

[sunny staines]

this link may help at microsoft

 

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

[--mom--]

Thank you, sunny. That might be the problem. It's not 'pirated' software, but it WAS software BOUGHT for another computer.

 

So, does this mean that even though you bought and paid for the software, it can only be used on that one computer? The Microsoft Works Suite 2003 that came with my computer and the XP OS won't work either, will it?

 

Is there a Windows 7 version of something like this program that she can download somewhere so that she can open attachments to her mail and such?

 

If she can't use this, but it partially installed....how can we remove/uninstall it if the Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel won't do it?

[pyrath]

you can try a program called "OpenOffice.org" while it doesn't state that it works on win7, some people hasn't had any compatibility issues and few have. so it's up to you if you wanna try it or not.

[sunny staines]

on our sony xp laptop it came with works, an big update to it corrupted it. the only way of getting rid of all of it was to run regseeker [free] and search for key words relating to works and delete the leftovers that way but read each key regseeker finds carefully. works is a nightmare to get rid off.

 

in the end installed ms office which went ok.

[itsmejjj]

Thank you, sunny. That might be the problem. It's not 'pirated' software, but it WAS software BOUGHT for another computer.

 

So, does this mean that even though you bought and paid for the software, it can only be used on that one computer? The Microsoft Works Suite 2003 that came with my computer and the XP OS won't work either, will it?

 

Is there a Windows 7 version of something like this program that she can download somewhere so that she can open attachments to her mail and such?

 

If she can't use this, but it partially installed....how can we remove/uninstall it if the Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel won't do it?

 

 

 

So, does this mean that even though you bought and paid for the software?

 

*no it will not .software is no longer supported by MS

and its not comparable with win7 .you will need the 2010 version..

and perchace a new packet, cd /bundled for windows 7..if wanting to use it.

 

Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel won't do it?

* yes again this is because its now corrupted.(the OS) by trying to install the old software.as win7 is protecting the drive .Evin if you use admins rights..trying to remove it.

 

you could try safe mode but i suggest the same will happen uninstalling..?

 

i suggest to you. a new install of windows 7 .reformat the drive.start clean..

not what you want to read.but this will rid problems..you are having..??

now having done this.and so on.

 

you need to back up the drive.just in case of this sort of problem.reoccurring.

 

use a program like mulcuim reflect.(you will need a usb drive attached for the backup)and storing the files.

 

sorry but that is the way it is.as MS the most pirated soft ware has many ways and codes thy use to stop this.and even legal cds,/or versions coded just for this.perpose. to stop swapping or copying there soft ware.

 

thy only allow 1 per application cd. for 1 system.and reforestation for that OS or PC..

 

as you found out..i know this is not what you want to read .but that's is the way it is.

 

jjj

[enoskype]

Hi --mom--,

 

Although Microsoft has removed the Windows Installer Cleanup utility (msicuu2.exe) from its Download Center, it is worth trying it to get rid of the half installed products, downloadable from HERE.

Please use it with your own risk.

 

I would also try to use free Revo Uninstaller 1.89 in Advanced Mode if the program you want to uninstall is shown in the list.

 

After all, IObit Uninstaller 1.10 has a forced uninstall function to be tried if all fails.

 

You can use free OpenOffice.org For Windows 3.2.1 Final instead of Microsoft Office and it works on Windows 7, so most of the functions are similar to MS Office.

 

Cheers.

[--mom--]

Thank you all for the suggestions. We have read them all and followed the links to the download locations. Since we don't know what we're doing, some of them sound dangerous for us to try. The computer is less than a month old and really has nothing 'extra' installed on it by her except her 'World of Warcraft' game.

 

I am wondering why Enoskype is suggesting IOrbit Uninstaller 1.10 as the 'if all fails' solution. I was reading about it and it sounds like the easiest solution. It doesn't even have to be 'installed' to work, right?

 

The "Windows Installer" says that it "will not remove the actual program from your computer". However, it goes on to say, "However, it will remove the installation files so that you can start the installation, upgrade, or uninstall over." .... but, if we only have the software disc that got us into this mess in the first place, ... which as itsmejj says can only be used once ..., will it go into the Uninstall mode directly from the disc or is it going to start trying to Install again? PLUS, it also says "We recommend that you do not use this utility with 2007 Office system products. For help removing installations of 2007 Office system products, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:" (There is no article number mentioned ... but this IS "Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007" ... so, doesn't it sound as if this program should not be used in this situation?)

 

I guess what I'm trying to do is figure out how to get the corrupt files out of her computer without deleting other necessary things that came on the computer. The thing is that we aren't even sure which files we should be deleting. In the 'All Programs' list that pops up, there are several Microsoft program files listed ... Are we supposed to delete anything that says 'Microsoft'??? We're so totally lost.

[--mom--]

Revo Uninstaller 1.89

 

We tried finding a "list" of programs it would uninstall, but couldn't find it. Do we have to install the program to see the list?

 

What is 'Advanced Mode'? Is that a setting within the program?

[atailor1]

Hi Mom,

When you install Revo, it will bring up all installed programs (icons) similar to add/remove in Windows. When you click on the icon of the program to unistall you will be given the option to do an "advanced uninstall" which will do a search of the registry for leftovers that other methods could leave behind. I have used the free version for a number of years and it has done an excellent job. With regard to Open Office as discussed, it to is a great program, meshes well with windows. Hope this has been of some help.

 

A.T.

[samr]

Hi mom,

Just be sure that when Revo searches the leftover registry entries you check only the ones listed in bold type. Expand all the "+"'s in the listings to see them all.

samr

[atailor1]

Good catch Samr, I make the mistake that everybody reads the fine print like I do. Mom, do your homework and read usage carefully.

 

A.T.

[itsmejjj]

on our sony xp laptop it came with works, an big update to it corrupted it. the only way of getting rid of all of it was to run regseeker [free] and search for key words relating to works and delete the leftovers that way but read each key regseeker finds carefully. works is a nightmare to get rid off.

 

in the end installed ms office which went ok.

 

 

i think sunny statement here is what you will encounter."is a nightmare to get rid off."

 

plus the fact correct me if i misread this you have win7 as the OS.

this will make it worse to rid of and risk more corruption to the booting OS(win7)

 

.and what to rid.? even i would not try it or wast the time ,but you may try it .or persist on trying .

as i am reading the posts,its a mess that the install made,and to boot you cant use the CD (uninstall) as the OS refuses to allow it.

why ? wrong version for win 7 ,and incompatible for the OS .cant be reinstalled or what is on the drive gotten of it.as you are finding out..

reason win7 is protecting the data,and refusing it to be deleted..so you go in a merry looping (tying to )rid it..till a possible failing boot up..that you could face trying to fix.

 

sorry its happens ,but myself would,as you only have a game installed .format the drive.reinstall w7.back it up,when done..at least its clean and correct.

 

the problem is xp,vista,win7 are very different in behavior in what thy will allow to install and uninstall, compatibility.problems,many use XP and give advice,very good advice ,but using a operating system using ,win7 or Linux,or apple

and versions . version like server packs,added, gives many problems with software installing.plus if coded, software,makes this harder.and corrupts the OS used.

".When you click on the icon of the program you want to remove.this may also be now removed or not there.as you try'ed to uninstall it.

 

and a uninstaller program,cant find the application.or part application left on the dive.

 

as in your case.thy allow install or a waring was given or should of been given..incompatible..for this version or OS..you may of overlooked.?

 

any how keep at it till you are ether successful or fail. ether way its a good learning process.

 

now the problem you face is uninstalling.that you have attempted.i bet some files are missing now.making it harder

and almost imposable to rid it?..like sunny stated .not a easy thing to do ,but not imposable to try..

 

perhaps there is a good lesson here

always back up a system ,with a program like mulcium reflect.before installing a major application.or any as a matter of safety?

and a fast reinstall from the image would of saved you from all this.

and no loss of data..

itsmejjj

[itsmejjj]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

ok you could try this site for help trying to fix the problem?

jjj

[Melvin_Deal]

Hi mom. The software you bought is good for only one machine. The key code that was originally registered for the machine you installed it on remains. Thus when you try to install it on another machine it doesn't work. MS has chosen to remove the office programs from the preloaded package on PC's to try to force people to buy out out of dependancy on the format. They want you to pay for what was once free. They have gotten pretty good at this in the last few years.

 

Win 7 you will have a hard time getting around this. I wish I had better news. You know I watch and care.

 

Peace be to you and yours -mom-

 

-Sincerely,

 

Mel

[--mom--]

Can a '(Protected) (Q:)' file be removed?

 

Thank you all for all the advice. We have been trying to absorb everything everyone is telling us ... researching and 'looking but not doing yet' ... because we're so afraid of possibly creating a new problem.

 

Finally, this morning, we took the computer up to Best Buy (where she bought it less than a month ago). While talking to other knowledgeable computer users, we learned that the 'trial software' that was installed on the computer was probably the cause of the computer not allowing the Microsoft Office 2007 to install (or uninstall in the case of the portions which have already been installed). A tech guy said that they install Microsoft Office 2007 all the time on Windows 7 with no problem. So, we came home and are at this point:

 

Trying to remove the first item in the program list, we followed it to:

 

Computer

Hard Disk Drives (3)

Local Disk (C:)

Local Disk (D:)

Microsoft Office Click-to-Run 2010 (Protected) (Q:)

 

Is there anyway to remove this Microsoft Office 'Drive'?

 

Another question:

 

I am totally unfamiliar with the workings of Windows 7, but my daughter said that last night she 'restored' the laptop to a previous date when the Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Office 2007 were not yet installed. She says it seems to be gone because she cannot find remnants of it in the Programs list. Would a 'Restore to a previous date' uninstall parts of programs that might still be in there? I was under the impression that a 'Restore to a previous date' would leave programs you installed IN there.

[So_sad]

Hi mom :-)

 

I haven't read this whole topic, but I have some answers to your last questions :

 

That "Q" drive is a virtual drive, created for Office "Click-to-Run 2010". You can read all about it here :

http://blogs.technet.com/b/office2010/archive/2009/11/06/click-to-run-delivering-office-in-the-21st-century.aspx

 

You need not worry about this drive. If you read the whole article, you'll notice they mention that Office 2010, in this "Click-to-Run" approach, does not affect any other Office version installed and used on the machine.

 

Now about System Restore : Yes, restoring to an earlier date can and will remove programs that were installed after that date. What System Restore doesn't remove are data files (pictures, songs, Office documents, etc...). So basically any documents/files created with a program will stay, but the program itself could be gone after a Restore.

 

===

[--mom--]

Can we access the Microsoft Office Program on the new laptop thru the old hard drive?

 

Thank you, So_sad. :-) After reading your post and its link, we were sure we could get the installation to work this time. We did another 'Restore' and we installed Ccleaner and ran both the Cleaner and 'Registry Integrity' part of the program (which found 217 items to 'fix'). We then tried installing the Microsoft Office 2007 again. It runs all the way to the end and then gives that same error message.

 

I then had a new idea! Our laptop problems have a history. The last pertinent part of our problems was the fact that her Compaq laptop completely died. It was suggested that we remove the hard drive off the broken computer, buy a casing for it and use it as an external hard drive with this new computer. In this way, she saved all her photos and documents. We did that.

 

My question now is:

 

The old laptop had this Microsoft Office 2007 on it. Wasn't the program on the hard drive that she removed and saved and now has in that case? We looked at the list of things on the old hard drive and we see a Microsoft Office but we don't know how to access it.

 

Can we access the Microsoft Office program on the new laptop through the old hard drive?

[--mom--]

Revo Uninstaller 1.89

 

We installed and run Revo Uninstaller 1.89 last night. It really IS a great program. We uninstalled every part of Microsoft Office we could find as well as the two 'programs' for the Microsoft Office 2010 Click-to-Run that were installed on the computer when she purchased it. Revo cleaned up everything except that 'Q' drive (which we DID read about and which supposedly does not affect any other Office installations). We installed the Microsoft Office 2007 again and got the same ERROR 25004 message. We removed it again using Revo and tried installing only Word, Power Point and Excel parts of the software. Again, an error message. We removed it all again.

 

We are thinking of going up to Staples and purchasing the Microsoft Office 2010. Does anyone think we are going to have problems with it because we deleted the programs that were installed on the laptop when she bought it?

[So_sad]

Hi again Mom :-)

 

About the Office install on the dead hard drive : no, you can't use that one nor do you need to. When a program is installed on a machine, it installs files but also registry entries (lots) which are needed for that program to run ; you cannot transfer those from computer to computer as you would with files.

With that said, I do believe you can install the 2007 suite on the Win7 lappie even though it is still present on the old drive ; the error you are getting isn't related to licensing.

 

I found something which may help :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

 

There you'll find an automated process to uninstall the 2007 Office suite (scroll down a bit) ; you just need to click on the "Fix it" button for Office 2007 and, hopefully, it will get/find something that was left behind with the other techniques you've tried so far.

 

If this doesn't work, I'd also like to know a little more about that "Error 25004" message : is there something else specified in the message, immediately after the "25004" ? If so, please let us know.

 

Good luck.

[--mom--]

Status Update and Thank You!

 

Once again, thank you, So_sad for replying to my post! We always learn so much via the responses we receive here.

 

Per your advice, we stopped looking to the old hard drive for a connection to the old software that was on the 'dead laptop'.

 

We are pretty sure that Revo Uninstaller took care of removing everything (except for that Q drive which we're not even sure does anything now that every other piece of Microsoft Office is gone) that was left on the computer. We downloaded "Open Office" and she has been trying it; it seems to provide every program she needs. :-) We are SO happy she doesn't need to invest more money (right now) into her new computer.

 

We're definitely giving up trying to install the Microsoft Office 2007 program on her computer at this point. Just because you expressed interest in the wording of the error message we have been receiving EVERY time we tried to install the program, it was: "... ERROR 25004.config.Xml not specified. A valid config.xml must be authored when deploying '(null)'." It appears to be a common problem because when I put it into the Google search engine, all sorts of links to it came up (which we DID read).

 

Computers are so much trouble!

 

(She just came in to tell me that she just tried to plug her old HP Printer into the laptop and it won't allow her to use it!)

 

Thank you ALL for all the help and advice! There are all kinds of help sites online (and we try to use them), but it's always really comforting to know that we can come here, ask questions, and get help from such good-hearted, knowledgeable, patient technicians. You're creating a lot of good karma!

[So_sad]

Hi Mom :wink:

 

Open Office is a great product. It can do a lot of the things MS Office does.

 

Thank you for that error message complement ; it is also the one I saw most when researching the problem. Not easy, as you've noticed as well. I remember the days when I got a problem with Office 2002 and Windows Installer on a new machine ; I ended up formatting the drive and re-installing Windows to cure it. I've learned a few tricks since, but here we are and I can't seem to be able to pinpoint this particular problem. As you saw while searching the error code, many forum topics have gone unanswered. There's a reason for that : these types of problems are difficult to troubleshoot.

 

New factory built machines come loaded with many unwanted programs ; antivirus and Office trials are at the top of the list. The first thing I tell anyone around me who's bought a new machine : uninstall those things before you do anything else, because once you launch them, they'll spread their tentacles deep into the system and become a nightmare to remove.

MS Office suites are very large, complex and possibly slightly buggy programs, at times.

 

Research on that "Q" drive didn't yield much either. Apparently, it is supposed to disappear once you've uninstalled that Office 2010 Click-to-Run program. Well... apparently not. Sometimes, maybe :???:

 

We could try and tinker some more, but I'll be realistic and tell you that I'm not very confident on being able to resolve this quickly, if at all. A re-install of Windows 7, followed by a quick uninstall of all the undesirables and then an Office 2007 install would probably work, but that's a lot of messing around (time and effort), considering Open Office may do the job for her.

 

Computers are supposed to be fun and entertaining machines. Right... Sometimes, maybe 8:)

 

I do hope she gets to enjoy the computing experience, soon :smile:

 

 

====

[itsmejjj]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html?filter[3]=Installation%20and%20Setup

 

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html?filter[3]=Installation%20and%20Setup

 

 

 

Computers are so much trouble!

yes thy can be ,but its like learning to drive...its a heap of fun..learning??

 

 

ok please read the help links one how to repair win 7

or a clean install

 

good luck on what you decide..and be sure you have the disks drivers, that came with the pc..there should be 2.utilities and video drivers..

 

and consider making a image of the drive(back up) when done

 

do this after you installed your fire wall,and av products.

and when it reregistration is ,(legit) GENUINE COPY CERTIFICATED.win7

then back this up .

 

just encase this happens again..

 

itsmejjj

[TheViking]

Mom

 

I'll try to help you.

First of all check this link,http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

and follow the instructions.

 

Then please report back here whatever result you get.