Re: How to best communicate with Microsoft about the difficulties of uninstalling the 2007 Office system?
- From: "Susan Ramlet" <shramlet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 08:42:13 -0500
Well, the "uninstall" is supposed to be the automated removal tool...which doesn't always work as intended (obviously).
I also have Open Office installed on one of my systems and I like it a lot. I think it meets most of everyone's needs for the most common functionality, and it's hard pass up "free"...I think it's better than an alternative of desperation; it's pretty viable, frankly. Not quite as elegant, and not all the advanced functions, but pretty darned viable. Plus, I like the whole open source concept.
That said, I also really like MS Office, and it would be great if the matters most complained about get some attention here. In my past dealings with folks from Microsoft, I think there are a lot of really smart people who have way too many priorities and PR issues to deal with. I think they really want to work through all these issues (which is why these forums exist and why you will see people from Microsoft come out here periodically) but have the overhead of a monstrous organization to wade through. (I work for a monstrous organization as well, so I have similar challenges in getting things done--even the things everyone knows are right...)
Not excuses, just discussion. Rally the troops.
:-)
--
Susan Ramlet
**please reply to the newsgroup so others may benefit**
"Sam Bryan" <sambryan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:OW1R1l5sJHA.240@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Susan I appreciate your thoughtful reply . And I appreciate the good Samaritans on this group. It's great
that people who are basically strangers take time to help others.
A couple of comments though.
I notice there are not a lot of "me too" additions to this thread. But I hope it won't take a lynch mob :) to
have Microsoft invest in making the situation better. As you said there have been many cases similar to mine that
have already been reported. It should be clear to Microsoft that they have a problem.
I understand what you are saying about the difficulties with having a universal uninstall tool, but with all
of Microsoft's programming resources isn't it a reasonable expectation that those are difficulties that could be overcome?
Office must be a multi-billion dollar product for them. I think they are putting it at risk. Out of desperation
I installed an alternative office suite and it met most, but not all of my needs.
They are also at risk for a PR problem I think if the word gets out that they do not have an automated removal tool for Office. The average
person, to some extent rightfully so, must wonder just how hard is it to remove a program? In the DOS days
you would just do a delete. And the word can get out. Things go viral these days. Microsoft really needs to get
out in front of this before they get Youtube'd. Spending hours and hundreds of mouse clicks just to get rid of
something would be pretty easy to dramatize.
Maybe you can do some consciousness raising with them.
Thanks again for your response.
Sam
"Susan Ramlet" <shramlet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:9B749656-82E0-4103-A936-6F1B22709F6D@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxHi, Sam,
That's got to be frustrating...and it's great that you are willing to take the time to post constructive criticism and your frustrations here. As you note, there have been lots of similar posts.
Not all of us are comfortable re-installing our systems because of a bum installation.
The manual removal is cumbersome, but at least it's there...there have been earlier versions where this wasn't provided, and it's useful to have all the details. Automation would be great, though it's always dangerous to automate stuff when you don't know the configuration of everyone's particular system, and the risk of toasting something is pretty high. However, it would be great if the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility (a much-used utility to remove Windows Installer info related to installations of earlier versions of Office) would be updated to support Office 2007. (It's not currently recommended for 2007. It is used for cleanup of bad installer information so that you can do a clean installation, and it has generally been pretty successful--not completely, but generally--on previous versions of Office).
That said, this is a pretty good forum, as there are people here who have direct contact with the product groups at Microsoft (at varying levels), and there are some Microsoft employees who occasionally come out here and check out what's going on in the community.
I'd imagine that if they saw hundreds of "yes, me, too!!!" responses to a constructive post, that would be a powerful thing.
--
Susan Ramlet
**please reply to the newsgroup so others may benefit**
"Sam Bryan" <sambryan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:OktvkxhsJHA.4364@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This is meant to be constructive criticism. An attempt to help people in the future not to have to go through what I've just gone through.
Any suggestions on how to best get Microsoft's attention regarding the 2007 Office uninstall situation? It took several hours and was fraught with difficulties.
I am running Windows XP SP3 and using Office Small Business 2007.
Here is sthe ituation I experienced, which I expect has happened in some variation to 1,000's of others.
* I had to reinstall Windows XP due to a non-office problem
* After reinstall of XP, when tried to run Office Word for example, get error message that said need to run Setup
* Was not clear what Setup meant. It became clear that I would need to do an uninstall before doing a reinstall.
* Using Install CD, tried running Repair. Failed. Tried running Remove. Failed.
* At Control Panel tried Add/Remove Program for Office 2007. Failed.
* Went to Microsoft support online and found the 6-page description on what to do when cannot uninstall Office 2007 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928218/en-us
* I went through this once, requiring several hours, but for whatever reason it failed. On this very helpful newsgroup someone suggested I might have had an older office suite around. I did have
some modules of Office 1997 and I did uninstall that.
* I tried again last night following the 928218 article from Microsoft, spending several hours and this time it worked. Perhaps it was the old office suite "interference".
Between attempts at using the 928218 procedure I purchased a commercial program that claimed to be able to automatically uninstall 2007 Office. It did not see 2007 Office on my system I assume because the first
attempt at using the 928218 procedure probably removed some key files or registry entries that it was looking for.
So I have had a huge expenditure of time and frustration and all of the attending indirect costs of projects being put on hold. The 928218 procedure has many steps, some involving deletions of registry items. And it is
very time consuming. Step 5, substep 4 for example required the examination of the properties of 440 items!
One way of looking at this is that the Microsoft software - 1. The Remove software on the install CD and 2. The Add/Remove Program on the Control Panel - has serious bugs. They failed.
Bugs that Microsoft has not addressed. With the office suite being their flagship product and there being millions of copies out there, their lack of addressing this seems incomprehensible from a business standpoint. And reprehensible from the standpoint of the lack of concern it shows for its customers. I wonder how many man-years have been expended by people like me who have run into this problem?
Given that Microsoft has not fixed the bugs mentioned above, why are they not providing a removal tool that is available online, that automates the manual algorithm of 928218? Many people are not going to spend the time
I did to do the manual uninstall or will not know how to follow the instruction or will not be willing to edit the registry, and could not be blamed for abandoning the office suite in favor the other options out there.
It did not strike me as promising to spend $59 for Midcosoft telephone technical support since I'd likely be told to go through the steps again.
So again -- any suggestions from this newsgroup on how to effectively get Microsoft's attention with this? Having a remedy will be a big favor to many people.
Thanks for considering this. If anyone thinks I've misrepresented the situation, please weigh in on that. Or if you have had similar experiences, you might add that to the thread. Presumably someone at Microsoft looks at these messages.
If you are from Microsoft, one way to look at this is we are trying to help you be a better company.
-- Sam
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