MS Office programs locked.

[jung]

Problem: Dell laptop with Windows XP and MS Office 2003 Small Business
loaded. System had been running fine for months. All of a sudden on Monday
I could access word, excel, powerpoint, etc files, but I could, not make any
changes what-so-ever to any of them. I could launch a new document in any of
the programs, but I could not make any changes (ie open a new word doc but as
soon as I tried to type a letter I got an error message saying the document
was locked).

I'm baffled. The system was working fine the previous evening.

 

[garfield-n-odie]

Sounds like "reduced functionality mode" because you haven't activated Office
or because you have an Office trial version that has expired. What happens
if you open Word or Excel and click on Help | Activate Product?

 

[Roland Young]

I wish I could suggest a solution to this, but unfortunately I can't - I
have the same problem:
I recently (about 45 days ago) bought a new laptop with "Microsoft Office
2003 60-day trial" version pre-installed (no CD provided). Yesterday it
switched itself into reduced-feature mode (no editing allowed, greyed-out
menu bars, error messages on typing) quite without warning. My 60-day period
certainly isn't up, and I haven't recieved any reminders to upgrade to the
perpetual license version on opening any of the applications. Furthermore,
'Activate Product' in the Help menu doesn't bring up any window at all. I
want to convert to the full version and get my functionality back! I have
looked at the Microsoft Knowledge Base pages on activating/converting Office
products, but they are not helpful at all, and as the telephone helplines
are not open until Monday (Friday evening now), what can I do online (or to
my system) to fix the problem asap? Thanks

 

[Roland Young]

That is the problem. When I select Help | Activate Product, no window
appears at all; the program just acts as if it hadn't been selected. It is
only the Activate Product selection which does that; the rest of the options
on the Help menu behave as expected. I had previously been through the
instructions on the page you pointed me to, but they do not solve the
problem.

 

[garfield-n-odie]

Some trial versions cannot be converted to retail... you probably have
one of those. I suspect that Microsoft wouldn't be able to help you
even if this weren't the weekend. You will have to buy a retail copy of
Office from your favorite vendor, and install it after you uninstall the
trial version.

 

[Roland Young]

Ok I went and did that today - I bought a retail copy, uninstalled the trial
version, installed the retail copy...and there was no change at all! I
wasn't prompted to activate the product during the setup process, and the
editing and activation issues still remain. Hmmmph. I suspect there is
something in the registry which wasn't deleted in the uninstall process, and
it still thinks it is a trial version. I have submitted a query to the
Microsoft Assisted Support site, so hopefully they will find a solution.

 

[Roland Young]

It is fixed now - MS support worked out what was wrong. The uninstall
program didn't remove the Office keys from the registry, so it still thought
it was a trial version.

 

[goodforagiggle]

I've got the same problem. I uninstalled the trial version, installed the new
Office disc and initially it was ok. Now it's locked everything again. Please
can you let me know what MS support suggested? Thankyou

 

[depontefract]

I've had the same problem too. I'm using a version of office 2003 under a
university licence that means the Microsoft won't support it (although I've
spent a lot of time trying to get them to), and the IT department haven't a
clue what to do.

If Roland Young was able to tell us what Microsoft Office Support told him
it would be very helpful.......or anybody else.