Stupid Error Message

[smmurph]

App: MS Office 2003
Stupid Msg: "You have not entered a valid product key"

Problem Background: I am working on a dell workstation that had office Basic on it, and I wanted to add Power Point from the Office Pro 2003 cd so that the Pres of my company could view a presentation file. When I entered the setup routince for MS Ofc 2003, it just said setup was complete, and yet none of the additional Office Pro products were available. Not being able to load any of the Office Pro products, I thought I would remove Office Basic, and start over by loading Office 2003, but when I went to remove Office Basic, the control panel Add/Remove programs showed that Office 2003 was loaded, even though none of the programs were avvailable. So, I removed both programs through control panel.

So now I am trying to load Office Pro 2003, the windows installer begins, and then I get the error message above. It will not even let me install the programs. The only knowledge base articles I have found are to troubleshoot this error message when you receive it AFTER you have completed the installation, and the error msg appears when trying to open and app that is already installed.

I have tried to copy the installation files to the hard drive, changed the setup.ini files so that the product key is in the setup file adding to the product section:

PIDKEY="productkey"

but this doesn't work. I have tried doing an admin setup, but it tells me I need to add the product key to the installation file (huh?).

The MS knowledge base tells me to use the custom installer, which is no longer on the machine since I unloaded all of the programs.

I am at an impasse, any help greatly appreciated.

smmurph

 

[fumei]

You should have just installed a viewer. Oh well. Or removed basic before trying 2003.

Hmmmm. Since you have two products, have you tried each different product key? And you are talking about the product key, not the validation key, yes? Is Basic removed - does IT show up? Or is it only 2003?

Gerry

 

[smmurph]

fumei,
I would have loaded the viewer, but the machine would not allow me to load anything over the top of Office Basic that was on it already. When I placed the 2003 CD in and tried to load power point, I got nowhere, except the installer saying already loaded, however it did not go through the load sequence. The machine (in add and remove programs/control panel) showed that both products were on the PC, however there were no files on the hard drive that represented Office Pro 2003 being on the PC, only office basic. Now that I have removed both products from the pc, I should be able to load at least one of them, however it will not allow me to get to that point.

Here is the sequence of events that fire when I try:

1. Load CD into CD Tray.
2. Open Windows Eplorer, double click set up (does not auto start)
3. Windows installer begins to download installation files.
4. Error mesage appears.
5. Process terminates.

So, to clarify my original post, I cannot even get to the point where I can perform any type of installation, or enter a key of any sort.

And yes, I am talking about the product key.

I hope this helps clarify my problem.

Thanks
Smmurph

 

[rosepetal]

Sounds like you may need to clean out your registry. The old product key and other information may be stored there. Some programs don't clean up nicely after themselves when you use the Add/Remove program.

 

[smmurph]

Rosepetal,
I have cleaned out my registry using a registry cleaning tool, then manually deleted any references to Office 11, however I do not know where the Product code is kept in the registry so I am unable to manually delete the reference to it.

I still cannot load Office Pro 2003.

Anybody know how to fix this issue?? I can't even get anybody on the MS community site that knows about this bug, and I am getting very frustrated.

Please ... need help!!!

 

[jimp56]

try the office resource kit, use the office removal wizard, see if that doesnt clear out the licensing entries.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/e/d/0eda9ae6-f5c9-44be-98c7-ccc3016a296a/ork.exe