Office 2003 - Preparing to install

[j17sparky]

Im sure ive seen a topic on here about this but i cant find it.

Anyhow, what it is is;

Whenever a user opens an office app for the first time during that session it comes up with the box "Preparing to install" and goes through the motions before starting teh app.

Now this is getting rather tiresome, does anyone know how to fix it?

My first toughts were with it having frontpage 2000 on, therefore 2 versions of office. But even after ive put FP 2003 on its still the same. Help

[krisd32]

did you delete the installation files as part of the set up?
because if you did thats your problem!

cheers

[plexer]

There used to be a bunch of registry keys you could import with office 2000 that fixed this behaviour but I haven't seen them for 2003.

We have the same problem but I'm living with it for now and we haven't deleted the local installation files so it's not that.

Are you user profiles roaming or madatory if mandatory then it's probably because office setup cannot write and store a copy of these values.

Ben

[dezt]

I have the same problem, are you saying i'll have to uninstall and re-install all office 2003 installations? Or is there an easier way to fix this?

[GrumbleDook]

Rebuild the admin install so that it tells machines not to delete the installing files. You can then publish this install using transform files to install only what you want.

[woody]

Copy the profile of which ever user was used to install Office (usually local administrator) to the default user profile, then delete all local profiles from the HD. We do this as a matter of course now before we commision new PCs

[ChrisH]

Copy the profile of which ever user was used to install Office (usually local administrator) to the default user profile, then delete all local profiles from the HD. We do this as a matter of course now before we commision new PCs

Hmm I replied to this while I was home but it seems to have dissapeared into the ether but my suggestion was pretty much the same as woody.

[tosca925]

Are your users using a mandatory profile, if so try logging on as a pupil user with the profile and change the .man to a .dat. Then run the office applications and then let it do the bit in question then log off saving the settings to the now .dat file. Once logged off change the .dat back to a .man.

[plexer]

Copy the profile of which ever user was used to install Office (usually local administrator)

I have Office 2K3 SP2 installed via GPO so this wouldn't apply.

I believe it is due to my students having mandatory profiles whereas before this year they had roaming ones.

Ben

[ChrisH]

@ Plexer

You would then need to do as Tosca has suggested then.

[john]

When making a new mandatory profile, I open office, register it to "School User" and then when i copy it back to the server its all done and dusted, no more install screen. Works well, just pops up for staff as they have roaming profiles.

[j17sparky]

Are your users using a mandatory profile, if so try logging on as a pupil user with the profile and change the .man to a .dat. Then run the office applications and then let it do the bit in question then log off saving the settings to the now .dat file. Once logged off change the .dat back to a .man.

Just tryed this and no joy.

What else could it be? Or have i done it wrong?

METHOD//

Change .man to .dat
Log onto pupil account
Run office
Log off
Change back to .man

//Does this need to be done with no other users logged on, or would it not matter?

[Teth]

definetly want to do that with no users logged into that profile.

I generally do
copy server/profiles$/Stundent to server/profiles$/student2
rename the .man to .dat in student2
make student 2 the profile for my profile creation/ editing account and log in
Make all neccesary changes and then log out again.
rename the .dat to .man
assign student2 as the profile for all students.
after a few days when I'm sure its 100% delete te old profile.

[dezt]

thanks teth / tosca, followed that procedure and it worked perfectly.

Thanks again.

[molesm]

Thanks work perfectly,
Although as I have not had to do much with the mandatory profiles, I did not at first realise that you had to rename the ntuser.man back to ntuser.dat. Before it would let you change the settings.