how do i format and not lose office

[garfield-n-odie]

By definition, when you format a hard drive, you delete everything from the
hard drive (including Office). After you format the hard drive, you have to
reinstall the operating system (Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc.) and application
software (Office, Internet Explorer, etc.)

 

[sddrlj]

"sddrlj" wrote: Yes and i need to just that. i have not yet.i have only one
more cd to get form microsoft then i entend to. so how do i know that i can
reinstall on this pc when i get need to i have already installed the office
and it says i can not delete the folder that comes up in disk cleanup without
causing probleams?

 

[garfield-n-odie]

You will need the 25-digit product key for Office and your original
Office CD, or else you won't be able to reinstall it.

 

[Guy Worthington]

I need to [completely re-format my HD] ...

Reformating will wear out your HD ...
Also avoid excessive defrag'ing ...

Yours sincerely

reformed HD thrasher

PS. The English might be onto something with these
short ten syllable sentences. I still don't think
it'll catch on for stream of consciousness writing.
And as for replacing all puctuation with ellipsis
.... Humph! ...

 

[Graham Mayor]

Reformating will wear out your HD ...
Also avoid excessive defrag'ing ...

I would like to see your evidence for this. There is nothing going on in
formatting or defragging that does not constitute normal disc activity.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Guy Worthington]

I would like to see your evidence for this. There is nothing
going on in formatting or defragging that does not constitute
normal disc activity.

Defrag'ing a modern HD doesn't increase performance and
need only be done monthly (or even longer)

http://www.techbuilder.org/article.htm?ArticleID=47626

Moreover re-formating a HD is a pointless activity:

http://groups.google.com/groups?th=c16fdabff5c0a620

The above articles I'm sure you'll take at face value.

I've heard horror stories of HDs falling over during
defrag'ing, but I'm having a frustrating time confirming
these stories. (To all you NTFS experts out there, it's
time to put your balls on the line, and finish this
conspiracy of silence.)

 

[Graham Mayor]

There is nothing to dispute in either of the links you have posted.

The first doesn't suggests that defragging is unnecessary, only that speed
increases due to defragging are exaggerated. Badly fragmented files put
greater loads on the head tracking mechanism and make recovery of crashed
discs more problematical. There are also differences in access speed, but
with current hardware the differences are masked elsewhere.

The second link acknowledges that older Windows versions accumulate all
kinds of clutter and have poor housekeeping making occasional reformatting
necessary. Windows XP has virtually eliminated the need for reformatting
(and I have *never* had to reformat since using Ghost). In this thread we
don't know the operating system nor the reasons for the reformat.

We have all experienced hard disc failures. Any mechanical device can fail
and a likely time for such failure is when it is working really hard. This
could be during a defrag, but could equally occur during backup or while
reading/writing large (eg video) files. I take it you are not suggesting
backup should be ignored?

The original point remains that nothing occurs during reformatting or
defragging that does not occur during normal heavy disc use.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[sddrlj]

hi sherry here i have a pavilion a250e i am runing win. xp i have a virus
that is interfering with my op sytem i got it right after i installed office.
i steal have disk and code but how many times can it be used??

 

[Graham Mayor]

If you have the disc and the code you can reinstall on the same machine
without problem. You can also install on a laptop machine that you own.
Activation of the more recent versions will not be a problem - if there is a
hiccup with activation contact the number on the activation warning.


--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Guy Worthington]

hi sherry here i have a pavilion a250e i am runing win. xp i have a
virus that is interfering with my op sytem i got it right after
i installed office.

Could you give us some more details such as: If at all possible,
the name of the virus or if you don't know the name of the virus,
can you describe what the virus is doing. For instance, some
viruses won't let you start windows at all, some viruses stop
your computer every time you try to use Microsoft office, and
some viruses just slow your computer down.

Also can you tell us if you are running any anti-viral software.

PS. I've cross-posted this to another newsgroup, which is more
specific to the Windows-XP operating system. I've also added
a summary line, because I love summary lines.

 

[Guy Worthington]

Could you give us some more details such as: If at all possible,
the name of the virus or if you don't know the name of the virus,
can you describe what the virus is doing. For instance, some
viruses won't let you start windows at all, some viruses stop
your computer every time you try to use Microsoft office, and
some viruses just slow your computer down.

Also can you tell us if you are running any anti-viral software.

PS. I've cross-posted this to another newsgroup, which is more
specific to the Windows-XP operating system. I've also added
a summary line, because I love summary lines.

I'll try that cross-posting again

 

[D.Currie]

I'll try that cross-posting again

To answer your subject line, you can't. Formatting means that you erase
everything on the computer, including all of your programs, files, settings,
mail, etc. So by definition, you can't format and still keep an application
on the drive (not to mention that Windows would also be gone, so there would
be nowhere for office to be running.) But if you have Office, you installed
it from somewhere, so you should be able to install it again after the
format.

After formatting, you would have to reinstall Windows, all the drivers for
your hardware, all of your programs, and then you could restore any data
you'd backed up. Somewhere before restoring data and connecting to the
Internet, you should be installing your antivirus software and updating it,
so that you don't re-acquire whatever virus it is you have now.

Are you prepared to reinstall everything on your computer? Do you have all
the CDs, license keys, drivers, etc., and do you know computers well enough
to attempt this?

And are you sure that formatting is the answer? It will get rid of a virus,
but it's probably overkill. It may be wiser to just get rid of the virus, if
you're sure that's the problem.

 

[Vic]

I just reformated my PC and after installing Office 2003 it can not be
activated again over the Internet.

Is there a solution for that?

Thanks,

Vic.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Activate by telephone.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Bullwinkle. J. Moose]

I suggest that the next time you consider reformatting your hard drive, you
set up at least an additional logical drive and place your programs there.
Then when you reformat and reinstall the os your programs are not affected.
Of course it's not that simple you need to save your system and system 32
directories from windows so you can copy back the library files that the
program installations put there.

Good luck.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Bullwinkle,

It's not that simple at all, since Office -- like most Windows
programs -- depends on a large number of entries in the registry that
can't be saved through a reformat of the OS drive. It doesn't matter
whether Office is installed on the OS drive or another drive; after a
reformat and reinstallation of Windows, you're going to have to
reinstall Office.

 

[Test User]

I suggest that the next time you consider reformatting your hard drive, you
set up at least an additional logical drive and place your programs there.
Then when you reformat and reinstall the os your programs are not

affected.

Not entirely true, since when you format the OS drive you'll also lose the
registry, which will contain most of the application settings.

Of course it's not that simple you need to save your system and system 32
directories from windows so you can copy back the library files that the
program installations put there.

Though even if you do that, you'll still need to reinstall the apps to
recreate the registry values.

HTH
-pk

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