Software

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Office 97 CD Keys

0 helpful
6 replies

by crooks

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I have a bit of a problem with 15 Office 97 installations. I have just found out that the person who loaded the software into these 15 machines used the same serial number for all 15 of them. I have 14 other cd's that belong to these PC's but without re-loading Office all over again, is there a program or procedure that I can use to change the registry key to reflect the real cd key that these 14 machines are supposed to have? I want to have the registered number reflect the cd to make keepingtrack of all this easier.

thanks

6 replies

by ann777

I'd suggest that you uninstall, reboot, and re-install.

You could try a search in the registry based on the repeating serial number you have on these 15 computers, but sometimes they are encoded into hex and sometimes changing them in the registry invalidates the checksums that exist encoded in other areas of the registry. Ulltimately, if Office 97 operates this way, then you will be left with a non-operating Office suite anyway. But you can try.

by ann777

Actually, I looked it up..... try this:

To remove the damaged Office 97 registry settings and to register Office 97 again, follow these steps:

NOTE: The following steps remove all user-specific settings for all of the Office programs. You must reconfigure all user-specific settings manually.
On the Windows Start menu, click Run.

In the Open box, type Regedit, and then click OK.

Expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER subtree until you see the following folder:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0
On the Edit menu, click Delete.

On the Registry menu, click Exit.

NOTE: When you quit the Registry Editor, the changes are saved automatically.

Shut down and restart Windows.

After you restart Windows, place your Office 97 CD in the CD-ROM drive.

On the Windows Start menu, click Run.

In the Open box, type the following line, and then click OK:

:\Setup.exe /y
NOTE: is the drive letter for your CD-ROM drive.

Setup starts in Maintenance Mode.

Click Reinstall, and allow Setup to complete. Setup does not copy any files to the system. Running Setup with the /y switch only updates the Windows registry settings.

by rwcrooks

Any Office install off of the server (using the administrative install option) will use the same CD key. This is acceptable and is a method that Microsoft recommends. I would suggest leaving the Office installations as they are (unless you have a whole lot of time) and keeping the COA's in your licensing file.

This discussion is closed to new replies.