Re: "Preparing to install ... Microsoft Office" dialog box SOLVED!

Hi Everyone!

Like many others here with MS Office 2003 we've been upgrading every time the newer version has arrived. After googling the issue I figured the culprit might be a small version/registration conflict within the registy.

On a whim I downloaded the MS Windows Install Cleanup utility from the support MS site and ran it. http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;290301

If you have indeed been upgrading pervious version of office, they probably have left reg keys and that is why the error message opens. Sure enough, I had entries from both Office 2k and Office XP when viewed in the utility.

To resolve the issue, I simply did this:

NOTE! I am only running one version of MS Office! Do not do this if you want to run multiple version configs!!!!

1. Run the MS Windows Install Cleanup utility

2. Select the non MS Office 2003 versions and hit remove. This will generate some kind of error message and crash the utility interface, but no harm; once you restart the util the entry for the selected item is gone.

3. Repeat until all non MS Office 2003 office versions are gone (I had to do four, two for each older version).

4. Reboot and voila! No more annoyance! Hope this helps everyone!