Number 258 - November 2004

Cannot Install SP1 For Microsoft Office 2003
by Carl Tenning, Tacoma Open Group For Microcomputers
Along with SP2 for Windows XP, Microsoft has also released a security update for it's Office 2003 product. So I downloaded the Office 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) which took over two hours on my dial-up internet connection. But after the download, when it tried to install, it said the Service Pack installation was unsuccessful. I tried downloading the Service Pack again, but with the same result; it would not install. Somewhere it said to verify that my copy of Office 2003 was a genuine Microsoft edition and not a bootleg copy, because the update was designed not to install in a bootleg or altered copy of Office 2003. Now in my case, I knew my copy of Office 2003 was legal because it was purchased directly from the Microsoft Campus store. So, what was wrong?	With a little more research, and somewhat by accident, I discovered a Microsoft Knowledge Base article 884298 that addresses this specific problem. It says that some third party programs may have removed a registry key necessary for installing the Office 2003 update. Sure enough this was the case. The specific registry key is one that defined the installation path of the original Office 2003 product. In my case this was the CD-ROM drive H:\. The instructions in the KB 884298 article showed how to replace this key in the registry. After that, the installation of the Office 2003 SP1 ran successfully to completion.
Number 258 - November 2004