T
Ted Byers
This problem is a common one. It has been described in a number of
contexts, and judging from even some of the resources on MS's support
website, it is well know to MS.
The problem is with MS Office products, and I have seen in the range of
posts and web documents that it applies to several versions of Office on
workstations running versions of Windows that support multiple users. In my
case, it is Office 2000 Pro running on W2K Workstation. But, I have found
documents about it referring back to W9X, and posts referring to WXP.
Here is what happens. Using my own situation as an example, I installed W2k
(an update version, but I formatted C: and then proceeded with the install.
At this point, there is no user other than the default Administrator, and
the Guest account, and then installed all of the available updates. I
installed all the software I intended to be used by everyone who can sign on
to my machine (basically me as administrator and me as an ordinary user -
without administrative rights). This included MS Visual Studio 6 and Office
2000, and all of the available updates for Office 2000. I then created the
account I intended to use most of the time, i.e. whenever I am working on
anything not requiring administration of the machine. I then log off, and
log on again as that user. I find that Outlook Express and Visual Studio
both work flawlessly at this point. However, regardless of which Office
product I try to start, the windows installer starts first and, claiming to
fail to find a valid source, generates an error message. If I click cancel
as soon as this error message occurs, the application I intended to start
starts and appears to function normally.
I have seen the advice to install Office using each of the accounts that is
to be able to run it. I have seen this both here and elsewhere and was
given that advice by one of my colleagues. IT DOESN"T WORK!! What happens
is that, from the condition I finished with above, if I start the normal
install process from the ordinary user account, I get the expected dialog
box asking if I want to run it as myself or as the Administrator.
Regardless of which option I use, when I click OK, the dialog closes, setup
runs for office and, after a few seconds, dies quietly (I can watch this
using Task Manager if I have it open and positioned so that it is visible
when the install is started). There isn't one word from it as to what went
awry, and of course the problem isn't fixed.
Another "solution" was to make the original install media accessable to the
installer, which I did, but even though the install disk was in the CD
drive, the installer did not find it. So that "solution" was a non-starter.
The other "solution" involves copying the profile of the administrator.
That solution gives the illusion of working, in that, after copying the
profile and restarting, Office appears to work normally. One would think
that that means the solution fixed everything. However, it broke Outlook
Express. After this solution has been applied, if Outlook Express is
started, up comes an error message box stating that there was a problem
loading the address book and that it needed to be reinstalled. I then
investigated this problem and none of the offered solutions work. No matter
what I did, I never managed to get Outlook Express to work after copying the
Administrator's profile to the user.
So then, if I use one account to administer the machine, and a second
account to work in, I am stuck with having either Outlook Express or Office
2000 working while the other does not. No viable solution has been
forthcoming either on this newsgroup or in searching MS's Knowledge Base.
I can't comment on whether or not these solutions will work on other
versions of Windows, because I don't have them. I do know, from days wasted
working on trying to solve this problem, that they do not work on W2K. Only
two MVPs have commented on this problem, offering solutions, primarily the
ones described above, but even they have remained silent when the offered
solution doesn't work; and a lot of the posts related to this problem never
received a response at all. This must be because no one knows a viable
solution apart from the ones described above, and they don't know what to
suggest when they don't work. I don't fault any of the MVPs for any of
this. It is a problem MS should have fixed by now, and they should have in
their knowledge base clear instructions on how to fix it, along with any
problems the fix may create. But it would have been useful if someone had
the honesty to say that there is no viable solution. Had someone said so
days ago, I could have spent the past few days much more productively. This
whole effort has been a collosal waste of time, and unless soneone comes up
with a viable solution, I have no choice but to go back to using only one
account, the administrator account, for everything even though I have been
told that is a risky thing to do.
Cheers,
Ted
contexts, and judging from even some of the resources on MS's support
website, it is well know to MS.
The problem is with MS Office products, and I have seen in the range of
posts and web documents that it applies to several versions of Office on
workstations running versions of Windows that support multiple users. In my
case, it is Office 2000 Pro running on W2K Workstation. But, I have found
documents about it referring back to W9X, and posts referring to WXP.
Here is what happens. Using my own situation as an example, I installed W2k
(an update version, but I formatted C: and then proceeded with the install.
At this point, there is no user other than the default Administrator, and
the Guest account, and then installed all of the available updates. I
installed all the software I intended to be used by everyone who can sign on
to my machine (basically me as administrator and me as an ordinary user -
without administrative rights). This included MS Visual Studio 6 and Office
2000, and all of the available updates for Office 2000. I then created the
account I intended to use most of the time, i.e. whenever I am working on
anything not requiring administration of the machine. I then log off, and
log on again as that user. I find that Outlook Express and Visual Studio
both work flawlessly at this point. However, regardless of which Office
product I try to start, the windows installer starts first and, claiming to
fail to find a valid source, generates an error message. If I click cancel
as soon as this error message occurs, the application I intended to start
starts and appears to function normally.
I have seen the advice to install Office using each of the accounts that is
to be able to run it. I have seen this both here and elsewhere and was
given that advice by one of my colleagues. IT DOESN"T WORK!! What happens
is that, from the condition I finished with above, if I start the normal
install process from the ordinary user account, I get the expected dialog
box asking if I want to run it as myself or as the Administrator.
Regardless of which option I use, when I click OK, the dialog closes, setup
runs for office and, after a few seconds, dies quietly (I can watch this
using Task Manager if I have it open and positioned so that it is visible
when the install is started). There isn't one word from it as to what went
awry, and of course the problem isn't fixed.
Another "solution" was to make the original install media accessable to the
installer, which I did, but even though the install disk was in the CD
drive, the installer did not find it. So that "solution" was a non-starter.
The other "solution" involves copying the profile of the administrator.
That solution gives the illusion of working, in that, after copying the
profile and restarting, Office appears to work normally. One would think
that that means the solution fixed everything. However, it broke Outlook
Express. After this solution has been applied, if Outlook Express is
started, up comes an error message box stating that there was a problem
loading the address book and that it needed to be reinstalled. I then
investigated this problem and none of the offered solutions work. No matter
what I did, I never managed to get Outlook Express to work after copying the
Administrator's profile to the user.
So then, if I use one account to administer the machine, and a second
account to work in, I am stuck with having either Outlook Express or Office
2000 working while the other does not. No viable solution has been
forthcoming either on this newsgroup or in searching MS's Knowledge Base.
I can't comment on whether or not these solutions will work on other
versions of Windows, because I don't have them. I do know, from days wasted
working on trying to solve this problem, that they do not work on W2K. Only
two MVPs have commented on this problem, offering solutions, primarily the
ones described above, but even they have remained silent when the offered
solution doesn't work; and a lot of the posts related to this problem never
received a response at all. This must be because no one knows a viable
solution apart from the ones described above, and they don't know what to
suggest when they don't work. I don't fault any of the MVPs for any of
this. It is a problem MS should have fixed by now, and they should have in
their knowledge base clear instructions on how to fix it, along with any
problems the fix may create. But it would have been useful if someone had
the honesty to say that there is no viable solution. Had someone said so
days ago, I could have spent the past few days much more productively. This
whole effort has been a collosal waste of time, and unless soneone comes up
with a viable solution, I have no choice but to go back to using only one
account, the administrator account, for everything even though I have been
told that is a risky thing to do.
Cheers,
Ted