MS Office Pro 2003 Removal

Hi Everyone!

I have a self-inflicted problem I really need some help fixing.

I run Windows XP Home Edition 2002 version, SP 2. With a 40 GB C drive and additional 160GB hard drive with 2 partitions - F and H. F is 121 effective GB and H is 21 effective GB. Computer runs at 2.4GHz with 1 GB ram.

I was trying to clear my C drive to at least 15% free so I could run defrag on it. I moved some media files to H disk, but still needed some room. I saw the MS Office 97 folder and explored around. I saw Clip art and Templates and wanted to move these seemingly harmless files to the H drive.

Well, now MS Office Pro 2003 doesn't work. In fact, Windows Installer keeps wanting to reinstall it. Here is the problem with that: I was using a student version I got from Texas Tech's student website. I no longer have affiliation with Texas Tech, so when I had these problems with MS Office, I decided to get rid of it and purchase a new licensed copy.

The problem is that MS Office is partially uninstalled, leaving enough to tell the Windows Installer 3.1 to keep trying to install the rest. With this residual part of the software, I cannot install my new licensed copy. If I disable the installer, I can't install my new Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0 - which is what I REALLY need.

So here are the two things I need help with:

Priority One: Getting Windows Installer to stop trying to install MS Office (without completely disabling the installer) so I can install Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0.

Priority Two: Getting MS Office 2003 off my computer so I can install my new licensed version.

I believe the fix is going to be to get rid of MS Office registry entries.

I did purchase a program called "Perfect Uninstaller" to try to do the dirty work for me. It did not remove MS Office 2003.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and possible solutions!

Donn in Rowlett, TX

 

You can remove Office '03 from the Installer by using the MS Installer Clean Up Tool. Here's the download an how-to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301/en-us To complete remove Office, at this point you may have to boot into a 'remote' environment (like a BartsPE disc, or the UBCD4Win, or even Knoppix will probably work OK) and manually delete the Office folder and any other Office files that are on the hard drive. Then reboot to Windows, and run CCleaner to clean any temp/junk files, then run CCleaner again, this time run it on the registry and let it clean everything it finds. Then reboot again, and try install Office from your new CD. Here's some links:
UBCD4Win download http://www.majorgeeks.com/UBCD4Win_d5710.html
UBCD4Win how-to-build-the-CD http://www.ubcd4win.com/howto.htm
CCleaner http://www.majorgeeks.com/CCleaner_Slim_No_Toolbar_d4191.html

BTW- UBCD4Win means Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows. It's a bootable CD that when booted to, loads to a desktop environment that runs and looks just like regualr Windows. It has tons of tools built-in; everything from file management to virus removal, you can even surf the web! So you'd browse your hard drive using one of the built-in explorers (I like Xplorer2-lite) and delete what needs deleteing. Or, to be really safe, maybe just rename or move the Office folders just in case totally deleting 'em causes some unforseen major malfunction..... oh yeah- you need your Windows XP install CD to create the UBCD4Win.

 

This is REALLY helpful. Thank you. I have downloaded the UBCD4win and I have created a disk with it. I am able to put the disc in with Windows running and it wants to install Windows rather than boot from CD. How do I get it to boot as an externally running system?

Thanks!