Office keeps asking for CD (2000 SP1a or SP3)

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We have office 2000 installed on a Windows XP PC in a conference room. Nearly every time someone who hasn’t used the PC before launches an Office app, it asks for the CD. We’ve installed using ALLUSERS=1, but that doesn’t seem to help. The person running the initial installation has Admin privs on the PC. Anyone got any ideas?

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Hi Mike:
1. Check if the installation was “run all from computer” (I can’t recall the exact words) & not from CD or on first use.
2. If you have more than one version of Office on the machine, then Office will do a “repair” each time a different one is used because it must change which version opens an Office file.
3. You can put the installation files on the hard drive so that you don’t need the CD.
Can’t think of anything else right now.

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I’m pretty sure it was installed with Run All From Computer. There shouldn’t be multiple versions of Office.
We’ll try putting the install files on the PC and see if that cures it.

Thanks.

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Usually it happens if Office wasn’t installed from Installation Mode (Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs | Add a new program), but from Windows Explorer or from Autorun instead. Try to re-install Office from Installation Mode. Make sure that you re-installing Office from the account with Administrative rights.

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I hadn’t heard of this before. I’ll try that too.

Thanks.

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I hadn’t heard of this before. I’ll try that too.

Thanks.

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I’ve installed every version of Office (and a few times with multiple versions of Office) and I have always installed from the autorun.inf CD file. I’ve never run into this problem. Autorun.inf is simply an instruction file that runs “Setup.exe” or “Install.exe”. Same thing with installing from Add/Remove Programs – it simply points to either of the two previously mentioned files.

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The cause of the problem probably lays in the way user accounts were created. If you use Novell’s Workstation Manager to create user accounts from a user’s profile on a network drive (creating a roaming profile), your user can log on from any NT machine and work with the same personalized configuration. On the other hand, System policies are stored in local Registry, and these settings apply to the computer, not the specific user. And if user account doesn’t map the drive where your Office Installation point is located, it will prompt for CD to adjust the Registry settings. To prevent such behavior you need to use Installation mode. But if you create your limited user accounts locally, chances are good you’ll never see such problem.

Installation Mode is not “the same” as running Setup.exe – it disables user registry and .INI file mappings, which means each user running an application would share the same .INI file or registry entry, instead of having them on a per-user basis. Once again, the difference is significant only in network environment.

Reply | Quote

The cause of the problem probably lays in the way user accounts were created. If you use Novell’s Workstation Manager to create user accounts from a user’s profile on a network drive (creating a roaming profile), your user can log on from any NT machine and work with the same personalized configuration. On the other hand, System policies are stored in local Registry, and these settings apply to the computer, not the specific user. And if user account doesn’t map the drive where your Office Installation point is located, it will prompt for CD to adjust the Registry settings. To prevent such behavior you need to use Installation mode. But if you create your limited user accounts locally, chances are good you’ll never see such problem.

Installation Mode is not “the same” as running Setup.exe – it disables user registry and .INI file mappings, which means each user running an application would share the same .INI file or registry entry, instead of having them on a per-user basis. Once again, the difference is significant only in network environment.

Reply | Quote

I’ve installed every version of Office (and a few times with multiple versions of Office) and I have always installed from the autorun.inf CD file. I’ve never run into this problem. Autorun.inf is simply an instruction file that runs “Setup.exe” or “Install.exe”. Same thing with installing from Add/Remove Programs – it simply points to either of the two previously mentioned files.

Reply | Quote

Usually it happens if Office wasn’t installed from Installation Mode (Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs | Add a new program), but from Windows Explorer or from Autorun instead. Try to re-install Office from Installation Mode. Make sure that you re-installing Office from the account with Administrative rights.

Reply | Quote

I’m pretty sure it was installed with Run All From Computer. There shouldn’t be multiple versions of Office.
We’ll try putting the install files on the PC and see if that cures it.

Thanks.

Reply | Quote

Hi Mike:
1. Check if the installation was “run all from computer” (I can’t recall the exact words) & not from CD or on first use.
2. If you have more than one version of Office on the machine, then Office will do a “repair” each time a different one is used because it must change which version opens an Office file.
3. You can put the installation files on the hard drive so that you don’t need the CD.
Can’t think of anything else right now.

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