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Office 97 refuses to uninstall

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7 replies

by tomsal

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I have this growing frustration about Office 97 (which is used on all clients) not uninstalling. I am giving two old machines to our subsidiary company, but due to license requirements I am not giving them Office 97 with it. So I put the Office 97 CD in the drive, go through add/remove (which spins up the maintenance program from the CD) and there is an option for "Remove All", so I click that option - it goes through the routine of "supposedly" removing the software. It asks me to restart, so I do. When the computer boots up all office applications are STILL on the system (and in perfect working order) - its like it didn't do anything.

I'd delete word, excel and outlook from Windows Explorer but then with the numerous dll's scattered about that may cause problems (not to mention it isn't a clean and professional way to uninstall software).

Any hints on how to solve this (or at least WHY "Remove all" doesn't do anything?).

(Its so annoying to have so much to do and a simpleissue like removing office 97 holds you up! ugh!)

thanks in advance.

7 replies

by dmiles

THis is the purpose of running disk defragmenter to keep all file and folder associations close togeather,yet the method of deleting files has been known to leave remenants of files in the registry and also scattered over the system because of its association with other files,a third party software is usually purchased to delete entire file

by tomsal

Your theory would of been considered if it weren't for the fact that the disk isn't in need of defragging (0%). Thank you for your input, however and I appreciate your advice.

by timthetoolman

Hi,

The only thing I can think of is that you dont have a clean installation in the first place. You could try re-installing Office97 over the top to make sure its ok and then uninstall.

Alternatively, you may find it quicker to reformat and put the OS alone back on the machine. Yhat would have the added effect of removing any other software that you dont know about...

Cheers,
Tim.

by tomsal

I tried that. I re-installed it and then uninstalled with the same results (nothing). I eventually did format the drive, but I still pose the question because I need to know the answer in case it happens again.

by dklippert

Here is the information you need.
Type the Q numbers in the search box at support.microsoft.com

Utility to Completely Remove Remaining Office 97 Files

Q176823]

How to Completely Remove Microsoft Office 97

Q158658

How to Completely Remove Office 97 on Windows 2000

Q254250

by tomsal

Thank you for your efforts. I do have (and have used in the past) the Eraser 97 utility, however that doesn't remove all the files either. It removes remnants left by a SUCCESSFUL uninstall of Office 97, however if you run Eraser 97 by itself it doesn't remove Office 97 100% by itself.

The information in Q158658 didn't create the desired solution either and Q254250 relates to Win 2000 and I'm working with a Win 98SE client.

Thanks for all your efforts, I appreciate it.

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