Brendan Hughes

Work allowed me to install Office 2000 at home as I do a fair bit of work there. Have a backup CD, useful as the original has gone missing far too often from work. As it’s gone missing, they are no longer letting anyone use it so I only have the backup.

At home I have XP Home. It was 2002 version, before the Blaster virus screwed it up, and the HDD made horrific noises on startup. Now the shop have replaced my hard drive, also upgrading XP Home to include the Service Pack so I don’t get Blaster problems. So now I have to re-install Office on the new HDD.

Tried to do it last night off the backup CD, it got half-way through and then gave me a message that I should insert the XP Professional CD to continue. I think it said something about not being able to back things up. I don’t have this CD so had to cancel the whole thing. I can’t re-install XP as I only have the 2002 disc (with blaster loopholes), and I’ve got no internet at home for the next week or more to download service packs.

Question; is this error message the fault of me having an Office backup disk, or my dodgy XP system, or both?

Many thanks

Brendan

ozzy

Do you have XP Home or XP Professional installed now. If it's prompting you for the XP Pro CD, then has it been upgraded to that?

The Office "Backup" CD (as you refer to it) should simply be a copy of the original. It should work just like the original. We have "backups" at our Office and whether we use the original or backup it makes absoluetely no difference. In fact, you couldn't tell the difference unless you physically looked at the CD.

Go into the properties of My Computer and see exactly which Operating System version you have installed.

Unless an XP Pro CD was used, it should never prompt you for it.

Stefan

Brendan Hughes

I did - it tells me I have XP Home with Service Pack 1 (IIRC). Hence the confusion.

ozzy

Well, it would depend on how they made the backup disc of Office. If it's a proper copy of the entire CD, then it won't cause that problem.

Did you try using the XP Home CD when it prompted you for the XP pro one? Sounds like someone's used an XP Pro CD at some point, but I'm just as confused as you.

Stefan

Brendan Hughes

Stefan, I didn't try the Pro CD, but was about to reinstall off my XP Home CD then realised I didn't want to do that as then I'd undo the Service Pack

Guess that's the only idea though. Might try again tonight and see what happens. Will also make careful note of the error message and also what it says when I refuse it (something like "Office cannot continue installing because...")

Just wondered if anyone here could say "Oh yes, that's a standard error message when X Y Z..." - obviously not.

Brendan Hughes

And the answer is...

Tried installing it from a different disc, it still prompted me for the XP Pro Service Pack 1 disc (despite the fact that I have XP Home) - so I put in my XP Home disc which was accepted without question. Installation now complete.

Puzzled but satisfied...