"Microsoft Office (any app) has not been installed for the current user"

Question

I had Office XP pro (2002) working, but I started to get this message. "Microsoft Office Access has not been installed for the current user. Please run setup to install the application".

I uninstalled Office and reinstalled it completely. Same error again, with all the Office applications.

I uninstalled Office 2002 and installed Office 2003. Same error.

In Microsoft KB I found the error could be due to permission rights, but I am administrator of my machine (Windows XP), so this is not the case.

Here I found that it could be due to a pirated version, but this is a regular version (I have the original CD with the Keys) and the workaround of replacing or deleting MSO.DLL didn't work.

Can anyone please help me?

Solution

Microsoft provided a tool(Office Removal Wizard) to completely remove all Office apps when a manual uninstall did not resolve the issue. I have had to use this many times with older versions of Office. Should be more info here:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/orkXP/HA011362891033.aspx

I would also be sure that you install office as a user with admin rights and then run one of the Office applications after the install. This creates some registry keys needed for other users.

Comments

[general exception]

I actually tried both with an original copy of Office XP PRO (OEM key) and an original copy of Office 2003 PRO (volume licence key). Maybe I have installed them 3 or 4 times, in various pc rebuilds, but I think that Microsoft gives you a much clearer message if you activate the same copy too much times....

[general exception]

Thank you for the help. Unfortunately, I already tried to manual uninstall, using the exact procedure you have described, but it didn't help. I will try the other options, but since I have solved my primary problem (I installed Access on an old W2K PC) I will do it in my spare time (which means not in the near future :-( )