Office 2000 on Windows 2000 Error 1706

Our PC's are on a corporate network and each has a local machine Admin. We want Microsoft Office 2000 installed for everyone who logs on. Anyone can log into any PC since we're on a domain. The problem I'm having is that when a user new to that PC logs in and their local account is set up, Microsoft Office is just bombing out as it tries to reinstall itself for each new user and comes back with Error 1706 that there are no valid installation files available. If you repeatedly cancel out of the messages the app be it Word, Excel, Outlook, etc will load up perfectly fine. I looked up some KB articles and it said to make sure the Visual Basic Help and Clip Gallery were set to Run from My Computer" when you install it. I went one step forward and set everything to run from the computer. I would think that WOULD keep Office form needing to go back to the installation files that are on the network.

However, the problem still occurs. This makes me crazy. All the Office apps will start up fine for the local admin account. If it helps all of the domain users also have admin rights on the local machine so any and all files should be available to them.

 

I believe this particular problem is related to adding or removing features from Office 2000 after it has been installed. I just did some testing and that does seem to cause it. You also need to enable AllowBrowseLockDown. So, basically once you install Office 2000 don't plan on changing it later unless you don't mind reinstalling, updating, etc.

There are other causes of this also. Too bad MS can't fix it with an update.

 

Interesting. Not the behavior I'd have expected. As to an update, the version is a little old for them to be tweaking.

Since security doesn't seem to be an issue, why not set up 'runas' shortcuts to the various Office pieces and have everyone run it as the local admin account?

 

Could be mistaken but that 1706 error as I recall it comes up when the original files can't be read either due to corruption, bad installation CD (or in your case perhaps network copy of the installation CDs). Perhaps your users on the domain just can't access the original installation which will be required for any additional components, changes, service patches or security updates. This isn't a Microsoft problem, this is a check to make sure you have a legitimate copy of the software. No copy - no updates - no changes. Sure, you can download the patches but you won't be able to install them without access to the original installation or the installation discs. So - if your admin account can access them and the others can't, what conclusion can we reach?

 

I would agree except that...

They're all local admins on the machine even though they're only users in the domain.

Everything installs fine as long as you don't change any of the installed features in Office. As soon as I add or remove an Office feature the missing Data1.msi error comes up for any new users signing on to that PC.

The network source is still available, in the same location as when it was installed.

To fix it I did more or less what Newt suggested. I edited the NTUSER.DAT file to create a RunOnce entry for all newly created users. It just calls a program to launch an Excel workbook, which launches and initializes Office. Does the trick but IMO it shouldn't have to be this way.