Expletive deletion: accidentally deleted Word

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Pounding my head against the wall, weeping and wailing, hurling various curses and and filth and florin filth.:mad: I accidentally deleted Microsoft Word while installing a printer:o:mad:. That means a trip to Office Depot to spend money I don’t want to spend. Anybody know a place in Seattle that sells cheap Word?

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Hi,

If you are wanting to buy Word, probably buying an office version, such as Office Home & Student, is cheaper than buying Word as a standalone app. You can even try it for 60 days which will, at least, keep your money with your for a couple months more: http://www7.buyoffice.microsoft.com/usa/default.aspx?cache=178886574

I know it may even compound your frustration more (and I apologize if it does), but using disk imaging, even through a free imaging app such as Macrium Reflect free, can easily get you out of similar situations in the future, so maybe it’s something you should consider.

Regards

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Was Word a portion of an extra included with a new PC purchase? How did you initially acquire Word? Do you by chance have a recent Image you could restore to?

If included with a new PC there should be a recovery partition or DVD to allow you to take your PC back to factory defaults, which would reinstall Word. Make sure you back up all your data first so it’s easy to get it back once restored.

If you purchased Word as either a stand alone or part of a package, simply reinstall it from the original source.

If by chance you have a recent Image, just restore from your Image. Less than 10 minutes. If you don’t have a recent Image, look over the numerous discussions on Imaging (just search for Image in these forums.)

I hope one of these suggestions helps.

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Was Word a portion of an extra included with a new PC purchase? How did you initially acquire Word? Do you by chance have a recent Image you could restore to?

If included with a new PC there should be a recovery partition or DVD to allow you to take your PC back to factory defaults, which would reinstall Word. Make sure you back up all your data first so it’s easy to get it back once restored.

The PC is a used Dell that came into my possession. It came with Office Home and Student. I accidentally deleted it while clearing out old programs I thought might interfere with the installation of a new printer. It didn’t have discs just old progs, some not used since the early aughts. I uninstalled them from the Control Panel so Home and Student are probably in PC heaven. :frustrated sob:

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Just when I was at the edge, staring at the abyss of technological oblivion, salvation! A correspondent pointed me in the direction of OpenOffice.org. I was extremely sceptical. A replacement for Microsoft Word? Downloaded for free? Haarrr! Scam! Virus! Too good to be true! Yes, it’s on Google but Wikipedia? And it’s legit? And you guys right here like it? I took the leap, I downloaded. Me likey! Plus my printer installed fine too. My techno luck is so good at the moment, it’s terrifying. There’s a virus somewhere with my name on it, I just know it. <_<

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A correspondent pointed me in the direction of OpenOffice.org. <_<

If Open Office works for you great. It does have issues with choking of some of the fancier formatting in the programs and graphing on Excel spreadsheets.

If you are primarily working on things for yourself and do not need to use it on documents created in Office by others, it is a great deal. It may still be great if you create your own items in it but only need to read Office items from others since Microsoft offers free viewers that can handle any items that don't render well in Open Office.

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The PC is a used Dell that came into my possession. It came with Office Home and Student. I accidentally deleted it

Just a reminder to people. In general, any software that comes on a used computer without the install disks or other indicator of ownership may be illegal (unless removed from other systems) and the machine may have viruses.

A solid sweep of the system for any viruses and programs of unknown pedigree is a good idea on a used system.

Office Home and Student is reasonably cheap and may be installed on more than one computer in your home.

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The PC is a used Dell that came into my possession. It came with Office Home and Student. I accidentally deleted it

Just a reminder to people.  In general, any software that comes on a used computer without the install disks or other indicator of ownership may be illegal (unless removed from other systems) and the machine may have viruses. 

A solid sweep of the system for any viruses and programs of unknown pedigree is a good idea on a used system. 

Office Home and Student is reasonably cheap and may be installed on more than one computer in your home.

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Did you try System Restore to a date/time before you started the clear out?

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I’ve used Open Office for several years on my home computer (Windows XP) and it’s been fine. As you may have noticed, there are equivalents for most of the Microsoft Office programs (Excel, PowerPoint). I would suggest that when you save your documents in Open Office, you save them as Word documents. In the “Save” dialog box, in the “Save as type” window, I always choose “Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc)”. That maintains the compatibility with Word and you can open and revise those documents using Word on another computer. If you don’t save them this way, they will be incompatible with Word.

I’ve also used the Open Office spreadsheet program (Excel equivalent) and it works fine as well. If you want to work on those documents in Excel on another computer, you must go through the same Save routine I mentioned above.

The Open Office programs don’t have quite the range of features that you find in Word and Excel, but for most situations they’re great. And you can’t beat the price.

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I believe that uninstall in Control Panel automatically creates a restore point before it uninstalls the program. That’s the reason for using it. Uninstall by Revo Uninstaller does the same.

Have you removed Office, or just Word? Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office and see if Microsoft Word is still in the list. If it is, start it from there (the first time). If Microsoft Office is still there but Word is missing, you can get it back. Word is just an application within Office, and even if Office is hanging by a fingernail, as long as it is registered you can reinstall any or all of it free of charge. (Leave the serial number.) If Office itself is gone, then you may be in a spot of trouble, but that’s where restore points, no matter how old, can help. (Restore won’t destroy your data.) A backup (by any name) that included your system will restore what you need.

A different approach is to go to C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice [your latest version number]winword.exe, which will be a file on its own, way near the bottom. Click or double-click that, and you’re on your way. Any form of search that finds winword.exe will do, and once you have it just run it. That is also the file to create a shortcut to.

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I believe that uninstall in Control Panel automatically creates a restore point before it uninstalls the program. That’s the reason for using it. Uninstall by Revo Uninstaller does the same.

Have you removed Office, or just Word? Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office and see if Microsoft Word is still in the list. If it is, start it from there (the first time). If Microsoft Office is still there but Word is missing, you can get it back. Word is just an application within Office, and even if Office is hanging by a fingernail, as long as it is registered you can reinstall any or all of it free of charge. (Leave the serial number.) If Office itself is gone, then you may be in a spot of trouble, but that’s where restore points, no matter how old, can help. (Restore won’t destroy your data.) A backup (by any name) that included your system will restore what you need.

A different approach is to go to C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice [your latest version number]winword.exe, which will be a file on its own, way near the bottom. Click or double-click that, and you’re on your way. Any form of search that finds winword.exe will do, and once you have it just run it. That is also the file to create a shortcut to.

I think some of your assertions here, are not correct. While a restore will restore the registry and files in system folders, it won’t restore the contents of your program files folder. So, if you have uninstalled Office, system restore can make your system “think” it still has Office, but the files from the Program FilesMicrosoft Ofice won’t be there, as they will have been removed by the uninstallation process and are not backed up by System Restore.

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I think some of your assertions here, are not correct. While a restore will restore the registry and files in system folders, it won’t restore the contents of your program files folder. So, if you have uninstalled Office, system restore can make your system “think” it still has Office, but the files from the Program FilesMicrosoft Ofice won’t be there, as they will have been removed by the uninstallation process and are not backed up by System Restore.

That is extremely interesting, and I don’t presume to know the answer one way or the other. One question it does raise, however, is: Will there be a registry entry to acknowledge the valid registration of Office? It strikes me that that would not be saved in Program Files but at a higher and possibly hidden level, in the registry itself. If there is such an entry, then it should still be possible to reinstall the same version of Office from any source without the need for a serial number.

I hope to hear more of this, as it affects us all at the practical level. Many or most of my assumptions, especially about computers, are undeniably fallible, and I welcome being corrected.

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I believe that uninstall in Control Panel automatically creates a restore point before it uninstalls the program. That’s the reason for using it. Uninstall by Revo Uninstaller does the same.

I think some of your assertions here, are not correct. While a restore will restore the registry and files in system folders, it won’t restore the contents of your program files folder. So, if you have uninstalled Office, system restore can make your system “think” it still has Office, but the files from the Program FilesMicrosoft Ofice won’t be there, as they will have been removed by the uninstallation process and are not backed up by System Restore.

This is far too time-late to help tiger4, but perhaps it’s still a good thought exercise for the rest of us. I think that dogberry was going in the right direction, but as ruirib pointed out, just not quite far enough. But if Windows “thinks” that the missing program is there (all registry entries and system folder files are back in place, presumably), then if only we could get back the program files that were deleted from the Program Files (x86) folder…

A system restore won’t bring back the Program folder files, but let’s remember what Win7 is using as the basis of that system restore–a “shadow copy” of the full Windows system (boot) partition. In essence, it’s a full (though hidden) system disk image. After running system restore, I would suspect that all that’s needed is to copy the program folders and files from the shadow copy back to their original location. There are two possible ways this could be done, I think:

[*]Use “Restore previous versions” on the Program Files (x86) folder.
.
[*]Use a utility like ShadowExplorer to browse the shadow copy and drag & drop the program files and folders back into place.

Disclaimer: I’ve never actually tried this, but if you ever found yourself in tiger4’s position, it would be worth a try before spending any money.

Also, this makes one good case for having a saved system image backup of your most recent stable configuration–using that to recover your full system state would be a lot neater and cleaner, by far.

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This is far too time-late to help tiger4, but perhaps it’s still a good thought exercise for the rest of us. I think that dogberry was going in the right direction, but as ruirib pointed out, just not quite far enough. But if Windows “thinks” that the missing program is there (all registry entries and system folder files are back in place, presumably), then if only we could get back the program files that were deleted from the Program Files (x86) folder…

A system restore won’t bring back the Program folder files, but let’s remember what Win7 is using as the basis of that system restore–a “shadow copy” of the full Windows system (boot) partition. In essence, it’s a full (though hidden) system disk image. After running system restore, I would suspect that all that’s needed is to copy the program folders and files from the shadow copy back to their original location. There are two possible ways this could be done, I think:

[*]Use “Restore previous versions” on the Program Files (x86) folder.
.
[*]Use a utility like ShadowExplorer to browse the shadow copy and drag & drop the program files and folders back into place.

Disclaimer: I’ve never actually tried this, but if you ever found yourself in tiger4’s position, it would be worth a try before spending any money.

Also, this makes one good case for having a saved system image backup of your most recent stable configuration–using that to recover your full system state would be a lot neater and cleaner, by far.

That is a reasonable train of thought, but I doubt it is feasible, in practice. The size set for system restore in my desktop, for example, is about half of the space currently used by the two program files folders (it’s a x64 system, thus the two folders). That can lead to a reasonable interrogation, which is, how does System Restore determine which files are saved whenever a restore point is created. I fear I am not able to provide a reply to it, not at this moment.

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For Office 2007 and 2010 I believe the activation info is kept in folders inside ProgramData. This info is, most likely, specific to a given computer configuration, much in the same way as Windows own activation info is.

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For Office 2007 and 2010 I believe the activation info is kept in folders inside ProgramData. This info is, most likely, specific to a given computer configuration, much in the same way as Windows own activation info is.

That sounds reasonable. Thank you very much for the information.

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Most Dells come with a DRP (Dell Recovery Partition) and will allow you to restore your computer to its original purchase state. Backup any data and perform the restore. You can go to youtube and search dell recovery partition and find loads of video guides or if you prefer google it.

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Pounding my head against the wall, weeping and wailing, hurling various curses and and filth and florin filth.:mad: I accidentally deleted Microsoft Word while installing a printer:o:mad:. That means a trip to Office Depot to spend money I don’t want to spend. Anybody know a place in Seattle that sells cheap Word?

Are you saying you don’t have an install disk for that program? I’ve always gotten MS Office on disk and if something goes wrong, I just reinstall from the original disk. 😀

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I think Shadow Copy falls into at least one trap, and that is that it may be (I’m not sure) only available on higher-priced versions of Win 7.

I think that System Restore will only restore a computer to what might be called the factory-door state. No computer is likely to have had that version of Office pre-installed by the manufacturer, although manufacturers may produce fully set-up computers en masse for for any number of industrial and institutional clients with a suitable licence.

What I had in mind was any backup that would let you selectively restore folders and files that you had previously backed up at any time subsequent to the installation of Office. If you can figure out what to restore then you stand a good chance of getting it all back. If you know exactly when you installed it, simple comparison of before-and-after backups might help.

If you still qualify for the version and it’s inexpensive, a wise investment may be buy a replacement.

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Unless your drive was really full and you have loaded and saved more stuff since this happened, your program is still technically there and possibly recoverable. I had a similar situation where I accidentally deleted Illustrator CS3. I was able to undelete the program by installing emergency undelete.

Not knowing much about your system and how full your drive was when this happened, I don’t know if this will work for you but given the other responses, it’s at least worth a try?

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That means a trip to Office Depot to spend money I don’t want to spend.

Don’t forget that this is school supplies month, and one of the two biggest buying periods with some of the best bargains for those who can stand (or enjoy) the crowds. Office 2010 is an industry and new-computer standard and it makes sense to use that if you can afford it. It might repay the investment down the road. From time to time the very chain you named has WordPerfect Office X5 Student & Home for half-price, which works out to about fifty bucks, and WP is a standard in certain businesses, such as law offices. For certain reasons, such as its compatibility with PDF files, it is worth learning and it will pay for itself as well. I would certainly give precedence to either (or better still, both) over OpenOffice.

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The response to this thread has been very good. Thanks folks; now I have something for future reference. I’m satisfied with OpenOffice at the moment. I just wanted a program to type and save stories. Anything that could act like Word (and free!) was fine by me. I saw no need to try recovering Word. There are some glitches, but minor overcomable glitches.

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