OFF2000: ErrMsg "Another version of this product is already installed ..."After Restart

ID: Q228666

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Office 2000

SYMPTOMS

When your computer restarts after running Office Setup, you may receive the following error:

Another version of this product is already installed. Installation of this version cannot continue. To configure or remove the existing version of this product, use Add/Remove Programs on the Control Panel.

Your only option is to click OK.

The Office programs have shortcuts on the Programs menu, but the icons are generic Windows icons. If you click one of these shortcuts, the program starts, but then exits without error after a few seconds.

CAUSE

You may receive the above error if all of the following are true:

You are using Microsoft Windows NT 4.0.

You do not have the Windows Desktop Update installed.

A member of the Administrators group advertised the Office installation by running setup using the /j switch. for example:


Setup.exe /jm data1.msi.

You, a non-Admin user, ran setup using the ALLUSERS property on the command-line. For example:


Setup.exe ALLUSERS="" /qb+

There is no support for performing a per-user installation of Office if Office was advertised with the /j switch.

NOTE: If you do have the Windows Desktop Update installed and you run


Setup.exe /jm data1.msi

as a member of the Administrators group, the Office shortcuts are automatically copied into the All Users profile. This is because the /jm switch creates a per-computer advertised installation of Office. So, there is no need to have any user run setup. In this scenario, there is no way to have Office installed for just a single user.

RESOLUTION

To remedy this situation, follow these steps:

Log off as the non-admin user that ran setup with the ALLUSERS property, and log in as a member of the Administrators group.

In Control Panel, double-click Add/Remove Programs.

Double-click the entry for Office 2000. This will put you into Maintenance Mode setup.

Click Remove Office in the Microsoft Office 2000 Maintenance Mode dialog box.

Click Yes to confirm you want to remove Office.

Remove any Office shortcuts in the \Winnt\Profiles\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup folder and in the \Startup folder of the non-admin user who ran setup.

If you want to have the computer configured so you, a non-admin user, can install Office and only have Office installed in your profile, follow these steps:

Double-click Instmsiw.exe in the Msi folder on the Office CD. This will install the Windows Installer files.

Apply the Always install with elevated privileges system policy to the non-admin user who will be running Office Setup.

With the Always install with elevated privileges policy in effect, log in as a non-admin user.

On the Start menu, click Run.

In Open, type

<path>\setup.exe ALLUSERS="" /qb 
where <path> is the location of the setup point,

NOTE: You must use either the /q or the /qb combination on the above command-line because you are using the Always install with elevated privileges policy. For more information, see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge base:

Q227813 OFF2000: Setup Switch /q or /qb Required on NT

When setup has finished, you will only have Office installed in this user's profile. For more information about System Policies and policy templates for Office, see the Microsoft Office 2000 Resource Kit:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork.

Additional query words: OFF2000


Keywords          : kbdta 
Version           : WINDOWS:2000
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: June 1, 1999