Office 2003 Installer / Patches

[WokingWounded]

My wife complained that she was running out of disc space on her Acer laptop
which surprised me because she doesn't have high space requirements (emails
and letters). I dived into Windows Explorer to have a look. I eventually
found a sub-folder (after changing Preferences to show hidden files and
folders) called Installer in the C:\WINDOWS directory which has files and
folders totalling 40+GB. The whole hard disc has usable space of 70GB so
this is quite a constraint. The files in it are mainly Windows Installer
Patch files (whatever they may be) - there are over 2,500 .msp files
totalling 40GB and the metadata suggests they are something to do with Office
2003 / Excel. I actually have Office 2007 Home installed but I did a custom
instal of the Word dictionary from my old 2003 Pro disc so that the spell
check works on Outlook Express (not compatible with the 07 dictionary).

Question: 1. Can I safely delete all these files and 2. Can I stop the
continuing build up of new patch files (they seem to arrive automatically
once a month)?

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

The quick answer is no. What you want to do is check to see if an update
has been failing repeatedly and get it to stop. Once you have that done,
you can use a tool called MSIZAP to remove the orphaned/unneeded msp files.
You will need to use the "/G" command line switch to remove orphaned files.

 

[WokingWounded]

..Woah! That's all very well for you to say....how do I check and how do I get
it to stop (is it by removing the offending .msi file? - there are 54 msi
files in the folder)?! Will the MS Office update page tell me about failed
updates? Where can I find MSIZAP or doI just run "MSIZAP /g" in "Run"?

 

[Tim Jackson]

.Woah! That's all very well for you to say....how do I check and how do I
get
it to stop (is it by removing the offending .msi file? - there are 54 msi
files in the folder)?! Will the MS Office update page tell me about failed
updates? Where can I find MSIZAP or doI just run "MSIZAP /g" in "Run"?

For MSIZAP, Google is your friend. First hit leads to:-

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa370523.aspx?ppud=4

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

Assuming you patch the workstations against Microsoft Update , Windows
Update, or Office Update, then you probably have a great feel on whether or
not updates have been applying successfully. If you have been noticing any
particular Office update that has repeatedly failed to install from
Microsoft, then decline said update and add it to your to-do list to get it
addressed after doing the below.

You need to get your hands on MSIZAP. Easiest way to do this is download
the support.cab file to your local computer. (you will find it here
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...11-fd83-419d-939b-9a772ea2df90&DisplayLang=en)

Open the cab file in your favorite compression program (WinZip, WinRar,
7-zip, .etc) and pull out just the MSIZAP.EXE and save to a directory on
your hard drive (e.g. C:\TOOLS). From there, yes, Start > Run >
c:\tools\msizap.exe /g > OK button. This tool will correctly remove all
..MSP files from the C:\Windows\Installer folder that are no longer needed.

 

[WokingWounded]

OK. Microsoft Update tells me that Office 2003 tries to update every day and
fails. So I've uninstalled Office 2003, I've downloaded msizap and run it as
described. A small black window momentarily appears and then disappears. No
..msp files are deleted. What happened?!

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

Okay, you will have to uninstall all Office family products. (e.g.
Visio/PowerPoint/Word Viewer, Office 2003 Web Components, Office 2003/2007,
Visio 2003/2007, etc). Basically you want to make sure that the hidden
MSOCache folder at the root of your hard drive(s) is gone.

Try the tool again as memory serves me that it will actually dump back a
listing to the screen of all .msp files that it is removed.

 

[WokingWounded]

Do all that just to get Word 2003 dictionary for OE? Er, I think I'd rather
pull my own head off....! I've had another look at the Installer folder. Most
of the patch files are in blocks of duplicates of up to 250 files (different
names but identical size and identical metadata) and most of these are
specific to Office 2003 (identified through the file meta data). So I just
took a deep breath and deleted the ones which are specifically associated
with Office 2003 and left the ones relating to other programs or which are
not identified. This has reduced the Installer folder from 40GB to 3GB -
which I can live with. I then reinstalled the Proofing Tools from Office 2003
(but none of the programs) and re-booted. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that
the update behaves going forward. It seems to be at present - It has offered
me three updates for Office 2003 - SP3 and two recent updates which I have
accepted (because Update treats you like a criminal if you try to reject a
"Critical Update" even if it updates an element of the program you don't have
installed) and hope that there's little further traffic (it seems that if you
use Microsoft Update you have to have everything, you can't elect to
suppress, say Office 2003 and take everything else). Thanks for your advice,
I'll tell you if we blow up!