Ever Had Installation Problems With MS Office?

Ex_Brit

Ex_Brit

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Staff member
I just had the strangest issues trying to install Office on to my mini-notebook via USB Flash drive. It has no CD/DVD drive (soon to be remedied by the purchase of an external one) so I have hitherto had to extract CD/DVD ISO's to my flash drive and then setup from there.

Yesterday I decided to remove the Works 9 that came with the notebook and install Office Ultimate from Technet Plus. It kept giving me a failure notice, rolling back etc. due to an invalid ISO file or some unavailable un-named Windows file.

I did a lot of research on the Internet and finally spotted someone who had fixed exactly the same problem by dropping a new fp4autl.dll (found online) in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\40\Bin which then allows the installation to proceed without a hitch.

I find this rather strange.....comments?

P.S. The notebook (Dell Inspiron Mini 1010) is only a standby in case my PC fails and carries XP Home SP3. Tried Windows 7 on it and it crawled so switched back to XP. McAfee gave me it as a gift.
 
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I've had some past experiences with Microsoft software where extracting the files to a folder would result in similar behavior.

I'd advise you use something like DaemonTools Lite Home page :: DAEMON-Tools.cc to mount the ISO image and install instead.

Be sure to DISABLE the option of installing adware on your PC during setup! It's not forced upon you, but it is checked by default.

Yucky people that only pretend to distribute free software. I find it appalling.
 
Thanks Mahmoud,

I was using MagicISO which is a little fiddly to say the least. Then just copy and paste the files onto the drive.

Microsoft's own (no longer supported apparently) Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool also works...sometimes...but it often doesn't like the ISO image. When it does work it's a really fast way of doing it plus it makes the flash drive bootable. It works in any version of Windows XP and upwards.
 
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Yeah, they pretty much dumped it after it was discovered that the contractor they outsourced the creation of the USB tool stole the code from an open source project.

But DaemonTools is good.
 
Actually never tried DT before so will give it a go. I managed to avoid the ads and toolbar when installing it.
I read somewhere that Nero can do this but I have never been able to find where, in Nero 9 anyway.

Thanks. :wink:
 
Pity noone ever worked on that MSFT tool and made it suitable for all media/images using legal code.
 
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I was reading in an article about the MS anniversary, that the day after BG signed the deal with IBM to gain the world monopoly on PC software and become the richest man in history, he signed another deal with another software house to adapt their own code, without telling them who the eventual client was, or how much money they were missing out on.
I'd have thought they'd see the guy who sold them open source as a kindred spirit.
 
Really? Well, well. Here's me thinking of BG at the deity level. I guess that's been shot down in flames.
 
I had this problem with Office once and ended up doing an upgrade from Office 03 to get it working. Called up support who had me re-install and it worked just fine when they connected :lol:

As for DT I use EB's Virtual CloneDrive. Totally free and no ad-nags or extras installed.
 
Ah, yes, ElaborateBytes. Once upon a time, they were my favorite!

DT supports more formats though.
 
Just solved a mystery...don't accidentally click the choice in Daemon Tools to create a virtual drive. I was going mental here trying to figure out why I suddenly had a phantom HD BD/CDRom in "Computer"....now demolished, deleted and long forgotten, but was a bit worrying while it lasted.

Not sure I like DT at all anyway, the interface is not very easy to figure out as it is basically missing just about everything except the odd button here and there. Maybe I'm dumb but I do like to see the odd instructions here and there.

I'll take a look at that Virtual Clone Drive.

Edit: Forget it. I'm not looking to make Virtual Drives, I'm looking for a cheap and cheerful way of extracting an ISO to a flash drive and making it bootable without going through hoops.

This is getting so complicated that I've decided to go out and buy an external USB CD/DVD burner anyway....to heck with this...LOL.

Thanks guys.
 
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I have 2 DVD writers, yet constantly convert normal DVDs into ISO images that I can virtually mount because I find it easier! <LOL>
 
Hi,
I can normal install MS-Office from extraktet Files (Office 2010) and from Virtual CD/DVD -Drive (Office 2007).
I do not correct understand, where is the problem.

Greetings from Germany,

STRUPPI
 
Really? I mean, technically it should work, but I guess there's something about 2007 that doesn't like the whole USB thing. Have you ever installed Office 2007 by extracting to a USB?
 
Struppi,

I am not used to using Virtual drives, that's my problem. I'd rather stick with physical ones.

Addendum:

Computer Guru said:
Really? I mean, technically it should work, but I guess there's something about 2007 that doesn't like the whole USB thing. Have you ever installed Office 2007 by extracting to a USB?
Click to expand...

Yes - it did it that way eventually after I planted that .dll file on the hard drive.
 
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I was aiming my question at Struppi, who appears to have also done that, albeit with Office 2010 though.
 
Ex_Brit said:
I'm not looking to make Virtual Drives, I'm looking for a cheap and cheerful way of extracting an ISO to a flash drive and making it bootable without going through hoops.
Click to expand...

You can easily extract an ISO with 7-Zip or other archive manager. If its a Linux OS you want to put on USB drive easily from an ISO unetbootin is super easy to use.
 
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