Install Office 97 over Office XP w/o harming XP? 2

[VBAjedi]

Hi all!

How do I make Office XP go "invisible" so I can install Office 97 for a while?

I have Office XP on the laptop I just bought, but don't have a restore disk for it. I need Access 97 for a job I'm doing right now, so I want to install Office 97 over Office XP without harming the XP installation. I don't care if Office XP is inaccessible for the duration of the job, as long as I can get it back without restore disks when I'm done.

Microsoft's KB just says to install multiple versions of Office in the order they came out, which won't work for me in this case!

Thanks for any advice you can give!

VBAjedi

 

[BlueHorizon]

Hi,
I have different versions loaded on my laptop and not in chrono order. I used the "Custom" installation and checked or unchecked (whichever) the box where it refers to overwriting other versions. The only program you can't have two copies of is Outlook. Otherwise I had no problem doing it this way.
Hope this helps,

Best,
Blue Horizon

http://www.bluehorizontraining.com

 

[VBAjedi]

Hey Blue,

I was originally going to do something like what you describe, but when I put the Office 97 CD in my drive the Autorun file fires off and then locks the drive (like it knows Office XP is already installed or something). That's why I was hoping to find a way to "disable" Office XP so the system can't see it. . .

VBAjedi

 

[jfhewitt]

You might check whether Office XP (if preloaded) has the restore program on a partition of your hard drive. Seems like restore disks are becoming things of the past, but usually you can make one set of restore diskd when you set up.

 

[TonyJollans]

Hi Jedi,

The answer to your question is that you can't, and even if you could I think it might still go wrong.

You are on dangerous ground doing this. It might work, it might not! You have to be real careful not to overwrite dlls with earlier versions. If you only install Access you might get away with it but do make sure you don't install any general Office components (Tools etc.).

I recently messed up by installing PhotoDraw 2000 on top of Office 2003 (which, of course, doesn't have PhotoDraw). It didn't really sink in that it was an office component until too late but I do have my disks to put in when requested so it wasn't disastrous for me.

You do this at your own risk and it is not recommended! Do you have any software (like LapLink used to do and maybe still does) which can image (and restore if need be) your machine from another. Or VPC would be a good option - then you could have an isolated operating system. Or do you have Windows disks? - load a second copy of Windows (at least as new as the one you're running of course!!) and make your machine multi-boot and install Access 97 on the second Windows.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[VBAjedi]

Blue: your statement that you had done it made me decide to try it again.

jfhewitt: no luck on finding an image on a second partition. I'd have made one myself but I dont have any partitioning software that can handle NTFS drives (just an older copy of Ghost).

Tony: I liked your suggestion of just installing Access 97 to minimize the risk of corrupting my Office XP install.

I ended up renaming the folder that Office XP was installed in to "Microsoft Office BAK". Then I browsed the Office 97 CD (to bypass the Autorun), ran the Setup program, and used Custom Install to just install Access 97 to a folder named "Microsoft Office 97". I finished by renaming the "Microsoft Office BAK" folder to its original name.

Everything seems to be working fine. . . the Office XP programs still load and I haven't run into any errors. I decided that if I have problems with Office XP I'll just wipe it and put 97 on there. I hate having to work so hard to protect a program just cause I don't have restore disks, anyway. Unless, of course, somebody wants to mail me a spare set of genuine Office XP install disks!

Thanks for the help!

VBAjedi

 

[TonyJollans]

Glad it's all working for you.

One final thought - take care when UNinstalling 97 just in case you end up deleting something which XP needs.

Enjoy,
Tony

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