Office 2003 - Unable to run or reinstall

All applications in my Office 2003 refuse to start. I have tried (as directed) running the setup CD but this message comes up:
"The Installation Source for this Product is not available.
Verify that the source exists and that yo can access it ".
I have restored the Registry back to a date before this started. I have been able to install my previous version of Office XP without any bother, but for some reason the Office 2003 CD won't run - just opens in Explorer. Any ideas would certainly be appreciated - thanks!

 

It sounds like the disk may be damaged or dirty, or the drive is in the process of dying.

The installation source is the disk itself.
If it can't be found the drive is not reading it.

Does this computer have two optical drives in it?
If so, have you tried the other drive?

If the disk is damaged, and you still retain the product key, Microsoft will replace it for you.

 

Office 2003 - Unable to run or install

The Office 2003 CD may be at fault, so I will test it on another machine (I have the code). The CD/DVD ROM works OK as I have managed to install Office XP as well as other applications (as a test). I have also installed OpenOffice as back-up too . Thanks for the help and I will let you know of the test results from the other machine.

 

Well, I connected up another computer and tested the Office 2003 CD. While it did not start-up (with Auto-run), it did start the setup routine when I clicked setup.exe. Came back to this machine, but no luck again when I clicked setup.exe. Very puzzling, indeed.

 

Good thought, Pete, and many thanks, but unfortunately, the same message box popped up - "The Installation Source for this product is not available. Verify the source exists and you can access it ". I have sent off a query to Microsoft Support, so hopefully they may be able to unravel the mystery. It's the first time I have encountered such a problem, that's for sure.

 

D'OH!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932857

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325084

 

Office 2003 - Unable to run or install

Thanks for your continuing help, Pete. I did download and run the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility, and sure enough the entries for MS Office 2003 and One Note 2003 were there (removed all). I shut everything down and inserted the setup CD. Lo and behold, it commenced the install. However, after some minutes of processing it began a "rewind" and came up with an "encountered error" message. Repeated the process, and again the same message. Rebooted, shut down everything and tried the OneNote setup CD. Same procedure - ran through for a few minutes and then up popped the error message (OneNote I need as there is nothing comparable for me to access what I have saved in there).

And to answer your other posting, yes, I am using same optical drive and installing on the same partition.

As yet I haven't heard from Microsoft (not holding my breath ). I have saved the error reports in case they do need them.

 

Who are you expecting to hear from at microsoft?
Have you requested an RFC?

There are some vague (undefined) observations of some drives not working well with some installation disks.

It is unclear to me whether these are media issues, or drive issues.

It may not be what you want to hear, but at this point, preliminary indications are (to me) that there are some drives that simply do not read some Office disks well. A key indicator to me is observing some encountering errors are differing points on the same disk.

The most cases I've observed have had to do with Office 2007, but Office 2003 is also effected.

You might also try to order a replacement disk.
It is not necessarily a conclusive test of the disk integrity for just setup.exe to start on a second machine.

You might try to download and install the latest Windows Installer (v2).
There is some indication in the KB that this has resolved similar issues with Office 2003.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290158

I really think you may get some success by installing the new Windows Installer (v2)


You would first need to uninstall the existing Windows Installer.

Then:

3.1.4000.2435
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/893803

or directly at

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...FC-5F56-4A38-B838-DE776FD4138C&displaylang=en