OFF2000: Error Message Starting Office Program: "Required registry information is missing..."

ID: Q236590

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Office 2000

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SYMPTOMS

When you start one of the Office programs, the following symptoms may occur:

The program starts, but after a few seconds, the following error message appears:

Required registry information is missing and this application cannot run. Please run setup to correct this problem.

When you click OK, the error message goes away, but the program immediately quits.

If you run Setup again, as instructed, and click the Repair Office option, you still see this error message when you start one of the Office programs.

CAUSE

This error message can be caused by missing, incorrect, or corrupt information in the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{GUID}

{GUID} in the above registry key is actually a 32-character string that varies according to the version of Office 2000 you have installed. For example, the {GUID} for Office Premium is:

{00000409-78E1-11D2-B60F-006097C998E7}

The problem occurs when the value data for the ProductID string value is incorrect or corrupted.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, do the following:

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys and Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it. If you are running Windows NT, you should also update your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD).

On the Start menu, click Run.

In the Open box, type Regedit and click OK.

Locate the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

If you only have one subkey that is a 32-character {GUID}, select that subkey and skip to Step 6.

If you have more than one of these {GUID} subkeys, select each one until you find the one whose DisplayName value matches your version of Office.

For the selected {GUID} subkey, select the ProductID string value.

On the Edit menu, click Rename.

Type OldProductID and press ENTER.

On the Registry menu, click Exit.

Start any one of the Office programs.

Enter your CD Key when the Microsoft Office 2000 User Information dialog box appears.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

Additional query words: OFF2000 pid pidkey cdkey


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

Last Reviewed: July 13, 1999