I tried to reapply SP3 and it complains that Outlook 2000 is not installed.



So it looks like any repair/reinstall will indeed return all the excess Office stuff. But I guess at this point I have no choice if I want spell checking.

Repair did not work either, gave me 1731. I am gonna try to reinstall Word from the Office CD.

That did not work either, complained there is another version installed.
Probably means SR1a.

I guess I'll bite the bullet, uninstall and reinstall Word. What a mess.

I am beginning to suspect that uninstall of Word won't work either, as it can fail for the same reasons that Add Features and Repair did not work.

THEN the question is what do I do?

As I said before, a repair won't reinstall anything that you had previously uninstalled the correct way. If anything is going to be installed, it's because you didn't use the installer for whatever you deleted before - and Office thinks it should still be present. That may be at the heart of your problem.

As for slipstreaming, if you had done that, then Help|About would be showing that SP3 was installed, not SR1a.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

OK, fine, I understand.

The question now is what is the solution?

If I cannot uninstall, reinstall or Add Features, then there are only 2 options:

1. Reinstall XP and all apps. No way Jose.

2. There is some advice on cleaning the system of Office, but it's a hassle and there is no guarantee this will solve it. In which case, add the hassle reinstalling XP.

In other words, no solution. SO I'll have to live without a spell checker.

Thanx for your help.

It seems to me your options are fairly limited:
• revert your system to the state it was in before the problems started, using System Restore, then uninstall the unwanted features via Add/Remove Programs;
• uninstall Office via Add/Remove Programs, then reinstall only those features you want;
• uninstall Office via http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q219423/, then reinstall only those features you want;
• uninstall Office via an app like Revo Uninstaller, then reinstall only those features you want;
• do a complete system refresh, which means reinstalling everything;
• live with it.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

• revert your system to the state it was in before the problems started, using System Restore, then uninstall the unwanted features via Add/Remove Programs;

I do recall that I had the spell checker working, but I do not know when the Office Tools disappeared and so I cannot revert to the desired state; it must have been a while ago, as I have not been using the speller. But it's a surprise because I do not recall doing anything that could have caused that.

• uninstall Office via Add/Remove Programs, then reinstall only those features you want;

Both the Add/Remove facilities of the installed Office and the CD refuse to uninstall, reinstall or ad the feature

• uninstall Office via http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q219423/, then reinstall only those features you want;

"This article applies to a different version of Windows than the one you are using. Content in this article may not be relevant to you. Visit the Windows Server Solution Center"

• uninstall Office via an app like Revo Uninstaller, then reinstall only those features you want;

This is an interesting idea, but as far as I know, Revo uses the CP Add/Romove and if that works, will clean leftovers; since that that does not work...
• do a complete system refresh, which means reinstalling everything;

Can;t afford that. Too much hassle.

• live with it.

That's probably what I will do. I installed OpenOffice and it does check spelling in .DOC files. So I will use it when I'm done with writing as a guide to correct in Word.

I found several manual methods to clean up Office, but they're iffy. If I even get the time and inclination I may try them.

Thanks again for all your help.

Re:
That doesn't mean it won't work.
Re:
AFAIK Revo does not rely on the Windows installer - it also examines the registry to work out component associations, etc, so that it can delte the appropriate files and registry entries.

Another thought has occurred to me: If you did use a slipstream for the SR1a+ updates, that might be where the problem lies.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

I've accepted that I have a problem which causes all this trouble.

What I don't see is a solution that I can live with.

Just out of curiosity I have attached two Office setup logs. See if you can discern anything of significance in them. Thanks.

Attached Files

	Office 2000 Premium Setup(0002).txt (1.5 KB, 6 views)
	Office 2000 Premium Setup(0002)_MsiExec.txt (1.1 KB, 6 views)

I wouldn't know what to look for with a program setup log.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]