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

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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