Office 2000 SP3 Install Failure

[Bob Felton]

Re: Post "Office XP SP3 fails to install", this forum, 1/20/2005
8:15 AM

I am having the same exact problem with the Office 2000 SP3 update. I
obtained an update CD from Microsoft. When I double click on
"SP3CDPAK.EXE" to extract to a folder (c:\temp) I get the error
message "Extracting file failed. It is most likely caused by low
memory (low disk space for swapping file) or corrupted Cabinet."

I do not have low memory nor do I have insufficient disk space. Task
Manager reports 266MB of free memory and I have over 60GB of free disk
space. Max paging file size is 1536MB with 768MB currently allocated.

I have run Disk Cleanup, deleting all unnecessary files. I also ran
"scandisk" (no problems found) and performed a defrag. I then tried
the install again. Same error message. I have even tried copying the
file to c:\temp1 (file copied without error) and double clicked there.
Same error message.

I even tried using the CD on another Windows XP SP1 machine (Office
2000 not installed but initial extract should work none the less) with
same result.

Can anyone offer anything else to try or look at for what is causing
the problem?

Believing the CD may be faulty, I have ordered another one. However,
after finding the above referenced posting, I'm now not so sure the
problem is with the CD.

TIA es TNX!

 

[Susan Ramlet]

Hi, Bob,

This may seem obvious, but have you cleaned out your c:\windows\temp folder?
(or c:\winnt\temp)? Sometimes if your default temp folder has lots of
files, memory errors can occur, even if your overall free disk space is
large.

 

[System Administrator]

Thanks for your response, Susan. No, I didn't explicity check that
folder. I thought that folder was included in Disk Cleanup. And
since the problem is happening on two different machines, I thought
that machine specifics would not be the cause of the problem. What
else can I look for? TNX!

 

[Bob Felton]

OK, I looked in c:\windows\temp. It wasn't empty but there really
wasn't very much there, either. I emptied the folder and tried again.
Same exact error message as previously reported. I even tried running
from the other CD drive on the machine with same error. By the way, I
had virus scanning turned off and no other applications running.

There has got to be a solution to this problem. Is it really a bad
CDROM?

TNX!

 

[Susan Ramlet]

Ah, I see it's on two machines.

Assuming they are configured basically the same and were installed from CD,
the only other things I can suggest would be to ensure you have the latest
version of the Windows Installer, and to ensure that you are the
administrator on the machine with full privileges. After that, I'd try to
repair the Office 2000 installation and re-run the updates.

Was Office installed from a CD originally, or from a network installation
point (or pre-installed by the original equipment manufacturer)?

 

[Bob Felton]

Susan, is Windows Installer used on the initial extraction of the
CDROM file to a temporary folder on the machine? I don't think the
SP3 update process is getting to the point where Windows Installer
comes into use.

To restate what I'm reporting (on both machines), when the file
SP3CDPACK.EXE on the SP3 CDROM is double clicked a window opens asking
for a temporary location to extract files to. A location is entered
and "OK" is clicked. A window then opens stating "Extracting
O2kSp3.exe" and then immediately thereafter an error window opens
reporting the error message "Extracting the file failed. It is most
likely caused by low memory (low disk space for swapping file) or
corrupted Cabinet file." When the temporary folder is looked at, the
filename O2kSp3.exe has been created and it shows a filesize of 96KB.
As previiously mentioned, I do not have a low memory or a low disk
space condition (on either machine) and c:\windows\temp is empty.

To answer your questions:

1. Windows Installer is at V2.00.2600.1106 on the machine on which
Office 2000 Pro is installed (I didn't check the other machine)
2. Office 2000 Pro was installed from CDROM
3. Office 2000 Pro is not installed on the second machine. I only
tried the update CD on that machine to see if the files would extract
to the temporary folder - which they did not, resulting in same error
as on the primary machine.

As a reminder, the OS on both machines is Windows XP Pro SP1 with all
current patches except SP2.

 

[Susan Ramlet]

Well, at a loss, I did a Google search (and Google Groups) and this error
has come up on programs other than Office. Most often, the response (if you
know it's not a memory or space issue) is that it may actually point to
corruption of the file on the CD (or download). Can you try to get another
CD from Microsoft, or could you try the downloads from the Office Update
site?

 

[Bob Felton]

OK, thanks for your efforts, Susan. Yes, I have ordered another CDROM
from Microsoft. What is strange is that I can copy the file on the
CDROM to the hard drive without error. However, when I double click
the copied file to extract its contents, I get the same error message.
This, to me, indicates the actual file on the CDROM is not corrupted
but that the self-extracting archive file was improperly built by
Microsoft before placing it onto the CDROM. Will just have to wait
and see what happens with the replacement CDROM.

 

[Bob Felton]

Susan, the issue has now been resolved. The replacement CDROM was
received today and the file extraction now works. Again, thank you
for your efforts to resolve the reported issue.

 

[Susan Ramlet]

Hooray--glad it was that simple. Thanks for posting back--