I do have an Office 2003 installation CD with a registration key. But when I put it in the DVD drive on my refurbished PC, it made an infernal racket, like the engine room of a tramp steamer, like this:

Flickr

It went on like that for quite a while, but thankfully it finally stopped on its own. I was afraid to hit the eject button on the drive out of fear that I would disrupt whatever it was trying to do.

But after the racket subsided, and I restarted my PC, I could find no evidence of any installation process.

I thought the drive might be faulty, (I hadn't thought to test it when I received the refurbished PC), so I inserted a music CD, and it played fine. (Well, not quite fine, it did make a bit of a clunking sound when I clicked the advance to the next track button on the player app).

So, I'm going to hunt around on the web for Office 2003 installation instructions. I thought all I would have to do was simply put the CD into the drive and it would automatically start the installation process.

These things take me a lot of time these days. I have difficulty sitting up at my PC for more than a few minutes at a time, due to worsening chronic health issues. So if I don't post for a day or two, don't take that to mean that I've abandoned this project. I really do need to get my "new" PC up and running so I can pull the plugs on my old XP and Windows 7 PCs.