Problems with Office 2003 updates

I've had a very difficult three days with multiple failures of software - mainly with Office 2003 elements. I even did an "Installer Cleaner" removal of Office 03 because Add/Remove kept giving me the "patch packet" message.

I found a couple of old posts (middle of 2008) on the subject, but they're considered too old to post replies against.

I got so frustrated with a major blow-up in Word03 that I did a system restore to about 6 weeks ago. This then resulted in the "Updates are ready for your computer" tool-tray icon showing up. I made sure that all the elements of Office 03 were working and then applied the updates. A total failure of Office03 again resulted.

I then went through a meticulous one-at-a-time update installation of all 17 updates. Two of them, Office 2003 Service Pack 3 and KB954464 each triggered the blow-up. I now have all the updates except those two and Office soldiers on.

If you get an update with Office 03 SP3 in it, be VERY careful. Make sure you have a very recent restore point from when everything was working. As soon as you re-boot after the update, check that Word is OK. That seems to be the most sensitive and will insist on coming up in Safe Mode because it "didn't shut down correctly last time ".

After getting stuck with that turkey IE8 from an automatic update installation, I've shut off the automatic feature and always do a "custom" install, so I can see what's going in.

Still fighting the "Printer Transfer Monitor" issue, but that's just a mosquito-level nuisance rather than a total show stopper.

 

A follow-up:

I found a second KB update that also causes Office 03 to crash. It's KB 943983.