Upgrade from Office XP to 2003; XP won't uninstall

[idrawstuff]

Hello!

I work in an office with 8 workstations; we recently found out that an old
employee installed pirated copies of Office XP Professional w/Frontpage on our workstations some time
back; when we realized the problem, we bought new copies of Office Professional Edition 2003 to
remedy the situation.

First I installed Office 2003 as the recommended "upgrade" install, but I
was still failing validation at the Validate Office website because my old
Office XP program was lurking in the background. Also, Outlook wouldn't come
up because it said I was trying to run two versions of Outlook side-by-side.

Next I tried completely uninstalling my Office XP and Office 2003 sets, then
reinstalling Office 2003 as a "full install." At this point, it seemed to
work fine until I tried to open an Excel file, and the "Configuring Office
XP" box came up and prompted me for my old product key. I cancelled, but
every Office file I tried to open prompted me to reinstall Office XP. Also, I
started having problems with Outlook trying to run two seperate versions
again.

Next I tried uninstalling all Office applications, running the version of
Office Clean that came with my Office 2003 disc, then reinstalling as a "full
install" but the results were identical.

I repeated the entire process logged in as the adminstrator.

I'm not sure what to try next! I don't want pirated software on our
workstations, but I can't seem to make it go away, and the desktop I'm trying
this all on is crippled Office-wise until I figure out a fix. Any ideas?

 

[kjv1611]

Is it possible to just reimage the computer from scratch, and THEN install 2003? That would make sure that the pirated Office is gone, registry and all. Or if you don't have an image available to use, wouldn't just reinstalling Windows and then the new Office be the most time-effective manner than carrying out a witch hunt to find the culprit file? Especially since it was pirated, I would imagine there'd be a greater chance of some extra file(s) being put somewhere else on the computer where you'd not have a clue as to what they are named, nor where stored!

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[idrawstuff]

I think you're right, and I think it's going to come down to reinstalling and reconfiguring Windows on all the workstations, as well as all the software we've previously installed, and then installing Windows. I've tried the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility to no avail now too. I just don't look forward to it!

 

[kjv1611]

Yeah, I don't envy your situation.

However, one way to look at it is this. If all the hardware is the same or similar enough, you could set one up correctly, create an image, and just image the rest. That will be MUCH less time-consuming than reinstalling everything on every machine for sure.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[idrawstuff]

I got it.

The old IT guy had deployed Office XP on the server, which was sending Office XP "install-on-demand" shortcuts to our workstations every time we logged on to the network.

We've called in a professional to dismantle the installer. Thought I'd keep you guys posted in case this happens to anyone else.