Compaq Presario 5014 - restarts w/o warning (PC upgraded from WIN-ME to XP/SP3)

[blbrown_teacher]

When to Control panel / Add/remove programs / MS Office / Support information:

Version: 10.0.2627.01
Last used on 4/1/2004

When I clicked "Repair" the following message came up (same as before)

"The feature you are trying to use is on the CD-ROM
or other removable disk that is not available.
Insert the "Microsoft Office XP Professional Disk and click "OK"
Use source:  Microsoft Office XP Professional.

However when I clicked cancel the following message came up:

"The installation source for this product is not available.  Verify that the source exists and that you can access it"     

Q:  If Office were installed via a disk and then supported later via a network could that account for the message?

Noticed another MS Office program was also installed:

Microsoft Office Live Add-in 1.3
Version 2.0.2313.0
Last used on 5/10/2006

Q:  What is a pip file?  I saw something on Microsoft support (can't find it again) that mentioned something about clicking on view and menu as the pip files might be incorrect and need to be reset if the program was used via a network (and needed to be redirected back to the locally installed files.

I thought it was something like this (but couldn't find it on MS Support again)  :(
How to reset personal menus in Office XP and Office 2000 programs

thx

[blbrown_teacher]

If it helps I've put together a list of the OFFICE XP versions, which ones are working, what Service Pack they have now (bold) and number of SP if it would update: 


OFFICE XP / microsoft office 10               
Office prgm    rel ver.    SP 1 (SP1)               SP 2 (SP2)    SP3 (SP3)   Status
Microsoft Access 2002           10.0.2627.1    10.0.3409.0   10.0.4302.0    10.0.6501.0   Status: installed working
               
Microsoft Excel 2002           10.0.2614.0    10.0.3506.0   10.0.4302.0   10.0.6501.0   Status: not working
               
Microsoft FrontPage 2002   10.0.2623.0    10.0.3402.0   10.0.4128.0   10.0.6308.0   not installed
               
Microsoft Office XP   10.0.2627.01   10.0.3520.0   10.0.4330.0   10.0.6626.0   partially working
               
Microsoft Outlook 2002   10.0.2627.1    10.0.3416.0   10.0.4024.0   10.0.6626.0   status: working
               
Microsoft PowerPoint 2002    10.0.2623.0 -   10.0.3506.0   10.0.4205.0   10.0.6501.0   status: working
               
Microsoft Project 2002   10.0.2915.0   10.0.8326.0   NA   NA   not installed
               
Microsoft Publisher 2002   10.0.2621.0    10.0.3402.0   10.0.4016.0   10.0.6308.0   working
      
               
Microsoft Visio 2002   10.0.525   10.1.2514   10.2.5110   NA   not installed
               
Microsoft Word 2002   10.0.2627.0 -    10.0.3416.0   10.0.4219.0   10.0.6612.0   not working  (sometimes works in safe mode)

[blbrown_teacher]

Found some information about:
How to reset personal menus in Office XP and Office 2000 programs and when the
individual program  . . . Word, ACCESS, EXCEL are opened then the file can be set back
to the default settings.  While in safemode in MS - Word I got it to reset the menu's to
default but program won't open normally.

Do you know if Microsoft sells OFFICE XP repair disks?

[PudgyOne]

blbrown_teacher,

May I ask a question or so?

Are you trying to install/repair Microsoft Office to be able to open Word/Excel documents/

Did you consider trying to use Open Office, which is FREE?

http://www.openoffice.org/

You would need to open a word document, then click on tools, options, load/save, general. Then using the drop down menu, change the Text document to Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP

Change spreadsheet to Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP

Change presentation to Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP

I did notice that is I would open a PowerPoint presentation that was already made, then I try to edit it, that some of the functions do not work correctly in presentation.


Rick

[blbrown_teacher]

Both . . . I've tried opening Excel and Word docs using OFFICE XP and
having no luck.  Also, I've tried to use MS Excel and MS Word to create
new documents/ spread sheets   also no success.  In reading a lot on the
MS Support website it talked about "installed on first use" and "limited number of
uses" with the beta version of OFFICE 10 (then OFFICE XP).  I'm guessing that
might be where the problem lies.  This software seems to be acting like some
of the trial software that stops working after a period of time.

Open Office (OO) is terrible.  I've tried using it in the past to open these same MS
documents and spread sheets with many errors./problems.
Due to strict software guidelines at my work, "conformity of work/files" and probably due to volume licensing agreements they don't want OO installed on any of the organizations PC's.   Basically, Open Office (OO) seems like it only wants to
open OO documents and MS Word and Excel are foreign formats to it.  It may look like
the older versions of MS OFFICE but is not compatible.
When sending work documents/spreadsheets to my home PC I couldn't open them
in OO.   When I got this COMPAQ with OFFICE XP that was one factor in trying to
get this PC to be useful to work at home using MS products/files.  I've even tried to
do the work in MS Works and then convert but spend time "cleaning up" the work
when I convert up to MS Excel or MS Word.  Then MS Works does not handle the MS Word or MS Excel files regardless if I try to save them in a current or older versions
(MS Excel 5.0, MS Excel 2002, etc.).  The idea was to save time by having MS Office
at home not spending hours trying to cleanup/repair files and documents.

Have you heard whether MS (or anybody else) will sell a recovery disk for older OFFICE products (if it's a verified install?)

It would seem that regardless of the fact that I have a verified version of OFFICE XP
that I may still end up shelling out money (that I don't have) to buy the media to reload MS OFFICE.    :-\

Through my work I'm trying to get them to provide me with MS Office Enterprise 2007 Suite since we have volume licensing but have not received final word on that request.
(It's unlikely since that's money our organization does not want to spend.)

thanks for the input but it seems based upon your suggestions that my version of OFFICE has too many fatal flaws and needs a fresh install  . . . bummer!     At least Powerpoint works (of now) that's a bonus.

Any other suggestions would of course be welcome  . . . thanks :-X

[blbrown_teacher]

IF WE HAVE REACHED A POINT WHERE YOU CAN NO LONGER HELP ME PLEASE
POST A REPLY BACK HERE SO I'M NOT WASTING TIME CHECKING EACH DAY
FOR A REPLY.

RESPECTFULLY,  THANKS FOR YOUR TIME
BLBROWN

[blbrown_teacher]

Also, it would appear that OFFICE XP PRO is not recommended for the XP operating system.   Standard Office XP would appear to be geared towards XP OS.

THX

[Mister2]

Hi again,

I'm not sure where you got your information, but Office XP will run on anything from Win 98 to XP (and probably Vista and Win 7, too).
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/suites/HA102126351033.aspx

The recommended system configuration to use Office XP is Microsoft Windows XP Professional on a personal computer with a Pentium III processor and 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM.

I have run both Office 2003 (Pro) and Office 2007 (Standard) on XP and Win 7 with no problems at all. 

I think it more likely your Office installation is corrupt and needs to be reinstalled.  If that means buying a new CD then I suggest you check the net for offers on Office 2007 - not only will you be able to read and edit your old documents, but also the new 2007 formats - .docx, .xlsx and so on.

When Office is installed there are several ways of installing the components - they can either be fully installed to run from the computer or else they can be installed so that if one component (Access, for example) is not needed but may be required occasionally in the future then it can be installed in such a way that when it is needed it will ask for the disk.  If that is the case here then it would at least explain what is happening.

The other thought that comes to mind is that Office has been installed for use under one account only, and you are running under a different account.  Again, it may explain things, but either scenario will require disks to repair.  If it is indeed a trial or Beta version, as you surmised, then you will definitely have to buy the genuine installation disks.

Sorry it's not good news, but without the installation disks I fear we have hit a brick wall.  The only other thing I can suggest is to contact HP Tech Support (HP took Compaq over some time ago) to see if replacement disks are available.  This would depend on whether Office was factory-installed on your system - if it was added later then obviously a new set of disks would not be forthcoming from HP.

[Mister2]

Further to my previous post, I noticed you have been using the Compaq to help sort out the problems with your Dell system.  I'm not sure what (if any) changes have been made to the Compaq whilst doing this.

I suggest you wait until the Dell is sorted out and then post back here again.  We can then run through the Compaq problems knowing exactly where we are on that machine.

Thanks.

[blbrown_teacher]

So when/if I buy Office 2007 will that install in concert with Office XP updating it or overwrite
those files?  Sounds like you've dealt with the exact issue according to you post.

Thanks for you time on this topic - please retire this topic and let me know where you move it to on your website (retired operating systems topics completed/retired are moved to . . . . ?) as I was never able to get the memory test CD image to copy to disc and evaluate the COMPAQ and it would be nice to access the detailed information you've laid out.

I doubt the Dell / Compaq connection is a big deal but you're probably right  . . . one
major computer problem at a time.

Thanks,
Brandon

[Mister2]

Hi Brandon,

No, I never had that issue, though I have installed Office a few times ;)

If you get Office 2007 then uninstall the current version of Office using Add/Remove Programs (or RevoUninstaller if that fails).  The new install will create a new folder for the program files, including a folder named Office12 (rather then the Office10 folder you see now) and should automatically take over the normal Office extensions  - if you double click a .xls file, for instance, then it will open in Office 2007.

The only thing to watch out for is to check the option to 'Install all to this computer' when asked during the first part of the installation procedure.  That way everything will be ready to use whenever you want it without having to find the disks.

I will leave this topic here (we can all find it now!) but I will lock it so we don't get spammers adding rubbish to it.
If you want it re-opening then just send me a PM (the little blue circle under my username at the left of this post) and I will unlock it so we can carry on.

Maybe when you get the Dell sorted out we can look again at getting a Memtest disk created to check the Compaq out - either PM me or start a new thread and we can take it from there. :)