You receive installation-related error messages when you start Office 2000 programs if User Profiles are enabled and the Start menu is shared (238387)

SYMPTOMS

When you start a Microsoft Office program, you may receive one of the following error messages:

The Managed Software Installer failed to install the program associated with this file. Please contact you system administrator.

-or-

This application must be installed to run. Please run setup from the location where you originally installed the application.

Also, if you double-click the Microsoft Office 2000 entry in the Add/Remove Programs dialog box, you may receive the following error message:

This action is only valid for products that are currently installed.

CAUSE

You may receive these errors if all of the following conditions are true:

You are using either Windows 98 or Windows 95.

-and-
User Profiles are enabled on your system.

-and-
All users are sharing the Start menu. This means that the Include Start menu and Program groups in user settings check box is not selected on the User Profiles tab of the Passwords dialog box (in Control Panel).

-and-
You do the following:
1. When the Windows logon screen appears, you either click Cancel or press ESC.
2. You then install Office.
3. You log off and then log on as a user.
4. You try to start one of the Office programs, using the shortcuts on the Programs menu.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, follow these steps:

On the Start menu, click Log Off and click Yes to confirm you want to log off.
Log on as any user. Do not press ESC or click Cancel in the Windows logon dialog box.
Re-run Office Setup.

NOTE: Because Office is essentially installed on the computer already, the time to run Setup for the user is a fraction of the initial installation time. Also, you will not be able to change the installation location for Office if you do a Custom installation.

After you run Setup this second time, any other user will be able to start the Office programs without having to rerun Office setup.

MORE INFORMATION

If you bypass the Windows logon procedure (by pressing ESC or clicking Cancel) then Office Setup will run the same way it runs as if User Profiles were not enabled.

The determining factors in this situation are the location of the SourceList subkey in the registry and the location of the {Office GUID} folder on your hard disk. In this situation these items are located at:

SourceList subkey - created in the registry at HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products\{GUID}\
{Office GUID} folder - created at \Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Installer.

NOTE: {GUID} in the above items refers to the Product Code for the version of Office you have installed. The {GUID} in the registry is a compressed version of the {Office GUID} folder on your hard disk. For example, you have the following for Office 2000 Premium:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products\904000001E872D116BF00006799C897E
\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Installer\{00000409-78E1-11D2-B60F-006097C998E7}

When you perform the steps listed in the "Resolution" section of this article, these two items are located at:

SourceList subkey: created in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Installer\Products\{GUID}\
{Office GUID} folder: created at \Windows\Installer.

For more information about installing Office on Windows 95 or Windows 98 when User Profiles are enabled, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

238122 OFF2000: Installing Office on Windows 9x With/Without Profiles