Re: Office 2003 Pro - No Activation Wizard :-(

I forgot to mention that you should be logged in to Windows as administrator (not a limited user) when you're doing all of this. You are, right?

As far as I know, there isn't a registry entry that does what you suggest. But there could be a problem with leftover registry entries from the trial version. Below are instructions originally posted by Leon Hao from Microsoft to manually remove and then reinstall Office 2003. Follow them EXACTLY... no ad-libbing allowed... except that I would make sure the Opa11.dat file is deleted before you perform step 11.

1. Quit all running programs.

2. Download and install the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/9/D/E9D80355-7AB4-45B8-80E8-983A48D5E1BD/msicuu2.exe

3. After you have installed the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility, click
Start>All Programs>Windows Install Clean Up.

4. Highlight Microsoft Office 2003 entry in the list and then click
Remove. Click OK and wait for the process to end. If any other stand alone
Office applications (such as Visio and Project) appear on the list, please
also remove them. Then, click Exit to close the Windows Installer Cleanup
utility.

5. Click Start>Run, type "regedit" (without the quotation marks) in the
Open box and press Enter.

6. Locate the registry keys below and click Delete from the Edit menu.
Click OK on the following warning dialog box.

Note: Please go to File>Export and backup all the registry first.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office

Quit Registry Editor.

7. Delete or rename the following folders or files if they exist:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE11
C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel
C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Microsoft\Office
C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application
Data\Microsoft\Outlook
C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application
Data\Microsoft\Publisher
C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application
Data\Microsoft\Templates\Normal.dot
C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Microsoft\Word
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Office
C:\Program Files\OfficeUpdate11

8. Click Start>Run, type "%Temp%" (without the quotation marks) in the
Open box and press Enter. Delete all the files and folders within it. If
there are some files which cannot be deleted, just leave them alone and
this will not affect the result.

9. Empty the Recycle Bin.

10. To remove MAPI, search for and rename the following folders/files if
they exist:

C:\Windows\system32\mapi32.dll
C:\Windows\system32\mapisvc.inf
C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Msmapi
C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Mapi

11. Restart your computer and install Office 2003 again.



Geoff wrote:

To recap, when the PC arrived, I assumed that the Office 2003 was part of the included software. During that first month I did click "Help->Activate Product" but nothing happened. (No wizard or dialogue box). I figured this was because it had already been registered as it was pre-installed.

After it crippled itself and I spoke to a rep for the company that sold me the PC, they said it was a full version (of standard office) that I could purchase from them. As I stated earlier, I was able to purchase a "Home use" version for my wife from her work place (as she uses it on the PC the most).

Before I installed the Pro version of Office 2003, I made sure I removed the crippled standard version from Control Panel / Add remove programs. I then installed the Pro edition (requiring the product key) and it worked fine until a couple of days ago. I had never been giving any reminders about Activating or registering. I thought nothing of this at the time as I assumed my wife's place of work were the ones that officially registered the product.

Anyway, in my Control Panel / Add remove programs box is only one copy of Microsoft Office. The entry reads:

Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, Size: 366.0 MB, Used: frquently.
The only other entries with Microsoft are Microsoft .NET framework 1.0, hotfix and 2.0 and Microsoft Intellipoint 4.1. No other entry starting with Microsft is in the add/remove programs box.

My fear now is that somehow there is a registry entry from the original standard edition telling Office that unless it was purchased from the original suppliers, it would continually cripple. I have contacted them regarding this, but of course they state as you do, if I uninstall and reinstall a different version, there should be no effect.

Any other thoughts on how I can get this Activation Wizard to run, even removing that "opa11.dat" file left the "Help->Activate Product" command doing nothing.

Thanks again for your time.


"garfield-n-odie [MVP]" wrote:


How were you able to "unring the bell" so to speak and "tried again, removing only the .dat file and leaving the .bak file alone"? Are you sure you uninstalled the trial version *before* you installed the home use version? If you click on Start | Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs, what Microsoft Office products do you see in the list of installed programs, and is Office 2003 listed more than once? Problems usually occur when people try to install a full version of Office 2003 on top of a trial version of Office 2003, when the proper way is to delete the trial version and then install the full version.

Geoff wrote:


Ok, thanks for pointing out my error witjh the .bak file. I have tried again, removing only the .dat file and leaving the .bak file alone.

When I run an office application, I get the same crippled version with the "Help->Activate Product" function seemingly doing nothing.

I have tried this with a fresh installation (which did prompt me for my product key again when I installed it) along with having my only pop up blocker (the built in one in IE) disabled.

I am assuming this "crippling" is something to do with the pre-installation that shipped with my PC and timed out of it's trial - which I uninstalled when it crippled itself. That was when I purchased my "Home Use" copy. My purchased product key has yet to be "activated" as I have never seen what this "Activation Wizard" looks like.

Thanks again for the quick reply. Have you any further thoughts on the matter. Could the "older preinstalled but never purchased" version have put an entry in the registry saying my copy of Office is not legitimate and this is having an effect on my purchased version?




"garfield-n-odie [MVP]" wrote:



It might have worked if you had actually followed the instructions. You were supposed to delete Opa11.dat. But where did you find instructions to delete Opa11.bak? No, this is not a rhetorical question. The current iteration of KB823527 doesn't say anything about deleting Opa11.bak (and not that you would know, but the previous iteration specifically said NOT to delete it). If Opa11.bak is still in the Recycle Bin, restore it and see if that helps.

Other ideas:
1) If you use a pop-up blocking program, it might prevent the Office activation dialog box from appearing, so try turning it off temporarily if you have one. Some antivirus "security suite" programs also include pop-up blockers, so try turning off your antivirus software temporarily.
2) Otherwise, I would try uninstalling Office (Start | Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs) and then reinstalling Office from the original CD. You haven't used the Home Use product key to activate yet, so it should still be valid. Use it wisely though, because the Home Use product key is good for only one activation as far as I know.

Geoff wrote:


Thanks for pointing me to this. I followed it and removed the Opa11.dat file and the Opa11.bak file from Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\OFFICE\DATA area.

When I run any office application now, I get a short installing dialogue with a green loading bar. After this has done. Nothing else happens. The office application is still crippled and the "Help -> Activate Product" function still does nothing. No wizard starts, nor is there a dialogue box telling me it is activated.

Any other suggestions?

(And apologies for my double post)










Geoff wrote:




Firstly, I purchased a new computer for my wife as she uses it at home to do work.

The computer came prebundled with a version of Office 2003 (standard version).
We assumed this was included software with the PC, but apparently, it was a "trial" version that after 30 days crippled itself. When I contacted the manufacturer, they explained the rather large cost of purchasing the software as extra.

However, my wife works at a very large company (The UK's National Health Service) and they have purchased a "Home Use" license.
This involved purchasing Office 2003 professional at a significantly reduced price. I purchased this directly through Microsoft and it involved giving all details and a special code from her place of work.

When the software arrived, I uninstalled the standard (crippled) version and installed the new Professional version using the new Product code.
Office worked fine, although I was never offered a chance to register or activate.

It is now 30 days later and the software has crippled itself again. When I click "Activate Product", no wizard starts up, no egg-timer, nothing. So I am unable to activate.

Can anyone suggest anything I can do. My wife is at home on a fortnight's leave from work and needs to get a huge amount done, but is unable to do so. Is there anyway to run Microsofts "Activation Wizard" without using the "Help -> Activate Product" from within Office applications as this does nothing. No Wizard appears at all, nor does a box saying if we are activated or not. Clearly we are not.

Thank you for any help.





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