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Installing Office 2003 on Vista OS

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by keldel12

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Hello,

I am trying to download Office 2003 Standard Edition onto my new laptop with a Vista OS. I have a license for the software and I downloaded Office 2003 Service Pack 3. But I continue to get an error message as soon as I attempt to run the program that says:
"Settings fil E:\FILES\SETUP\SETUP.INI is missing or invalid"
Can anyone offer any solutions to this problem?

Thanks!

13 replies

by maniacman

You'll need to go to Office 2007 on Vista I believe.

by seanferd

There is an issue with sp3 and drive letter assignment.

And yes, you can install Office 2003 on Vista.

by keldel12

Should I install from another drive or download sp3 to another drive?

by seanferd

But I can't see why the E: drive should be a problem. Then again, I've had "phantom" problems installing MS software, and certain drivers, similar to your issue.

Make sure your full path E:\FILES\SETUP\SETUP.INI is correct. Navigate to that directory in Explorer, and make sure that SETUP.INI is there.

Question: For your SP3, is the file you downloaded a .CAB file, or did you just get something like SETUP.EXE? The CABinet file contains the update, while SETUP.exe is just a setup engine, and it is probably trying to download files from microsoft, and can't find them.

If you have or had the .CAB file, are there a bunch of other files in the directory E:\FILES\SETUP\ where the SETUP.INI is supposed to be? If not, you may need to point the setup program to your user account TEMP folder, if the files are in there. You can type %temp% in the Run box to find this folder quickly.

You can check this page:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286396
which was for an earlier version of Office, but may be of some help.

Some sightly more "drastic" measures. Post back with results of the above first:

If you can, re-install the Service Pack 2 for XP. It will fix any problems with the Microsoft Installer.

One last thing for now, you can search your computer (all drives) for OHotfix*.log
(with the asterisk). You can copy the text of the files and paste them into a post. Do it in 2 posts if it is easier for you.

Microsoft also has forums for Office at their site, if you'd feel more comfortable there. It would also potentially mean "more eyes" on the problem. Post there also if you wish, but I'll work on this all the same.

Hope we can get this working for you. :)

by keldel12

I have a couple questions for you....I'm unsure of how to navigate to E:\FILES\SETUP\SETUP.INI using Explorer to make sure that SETUP.INI is there? How to I go about doing that?

I'm pretty sure when I downloaded SP3 it was just a SETUP.EXE. Can I download the .CAB file from Microsoft?

Also, I tried searching for OHotfix*.log But I didn't find any files.

If you can offer any more help or advice I'd really appreciate it, thank you so much for the repsonse!

by seanferd

Okay, first, I think this is the simple solution to your problem. Click this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=E25B7049-3E13-433B-B9D2-5E3C1132F206&displaylang=en

Click on the "Download" button at the top of the blue box. You will get a download dialog box. [Wait until it shows up, it took more than a few seconds in my case.]

In the Download box, choose "Save" or "Save this program to disk". [The exact verbiage may vary.]

You will now get a "Save" dialog box. Save the file to your Desktop, for easy access. There is a "Desktop" button on the Save box, just click that, then click Save. [The Desktop button looks like a blotter, and may be labeled as Desktop also.]

The name of the file is Office2003SP3-KB923618-FullFile-ENU.exe
Just double-click it, and installation will begin!

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to post back. I will also add another post below about navigating in Explorer. I hope this helps you!

by seanferd

I will keep this fairly simple for now. Feel free to ask for more details if you like.

1. Double-click My Computer on the Desktop.
- It may have a different name, but the icon looks like a computer monitor (screen).

2. We will use your E:\FILES\SETUP\ as an example. So double-click the E: drive.

3. Find the FILES folder and double-click it.

4. Find the SETUP folder, and double-click it.
5. Now you are in the right folder, and you would look for a file named Setup.ini, if it is there.

I have given this example for the default setup of Windows Explorer, as most people don't seem to change the options.

If you like, you can change the way Explorer looks and works through the View menu. If you right-click My Computer, or any folder, and choose Explore rather than Open, you get a nice tree-view on the left side of the window. This is the Explorer Pane. You can change how big the icons are in the View Pane, and what info is available. You can make the changes permanent, and apply that appearance to all folders. Most of this, you can do through the View menu. I can also tell you how to make Explorer Explore rather than Open by default. Windows Help file is pretty good at describing this stuff most of the time, also.

Happy exploring :)

by keldel12

Thank you for all the instructions and information seanferd!

A few more questions though if you don't mind:

I searched in the E: files for setup.ini but I wasn't able to find it? So perhaps it's not there but I don't really understand why it would be a problem because I've used the software before on a different OS without an issue?

Also, I downloaded SP3 from the link you provided....should I run that on it's own off of my desktop, would that be of any benefit?

Am I missing any steps that I could take to make the software work here?

Thank you again, I really appreciate the help!

by keldel12

and I received a message that "the expected version of the product was not found on your system."

But the Microsoft Office 2003 cd is in my E: drive?

...not really sure what that could mean?

by thumbsup2

Durring install, when it calls for the Setup.ini file, use Seanferd's instructions to POINT the installation to the correct folder. Once you get Office installed and BEFORE you attempt to start any of the programs, run the SP3 that you downloaded. It can't apply itself to a program that hasn't been installed yet.

And, in a previous post, you said you didn't understand why 2003 wouldn't install because it had installed on a previous OS. Well, you're dealing with Vista now. Things are different. Trying to install software that came out 4 years before the new OS did will demand different steps to try and get it to go in.

by seanferd

don't worry about what that other setup file was looking for. The update is self -contained. I suspect your previous setup.exe file was for installation over the Web. You downloaded the entire service pack this time, so you don't need anything else.

You can run sp3 setup from the desktop to update Office 2003. It doesn't really matter where you run it from. Desktop is just convenient. It was easy to find after you downloaded it, right? :)

by seanferd

You need to get Office 2003 installed first. :)

It wasn't clear to me that you were trying to install Office from a CD, sorry. You need to do that before you worry about any updates.

If you put the CD in the drive, Setup is starting automatically (auto-running)? And then it isn't finding its own setup files? Again, my apologies, I thought you were just talking about the update.

If it isn't seeing its own setup.ini, this isn't entirely unusual for a MS product. If you added a drive since Vista was installed, that can be a cause. Regardless, when you get the error message (Can't find setup.ini), do you get a little dialog box with the option to browse for the file? The file should be located right in E:\

just let us know exactly how you are starting the setup process, and exactly what you see when you get the error message.

We can make this work.

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