Now if you just bought Office 2010 when it was released you probably were able to install it without problem completing the whole process within 20 minutes. Some of us tested the beta product and then the pre-release version. Now, however these are about to expire and it's tie to install the full product. That's where the problem started.
As soon as I tried to install Office 2010 I got this error message:
Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version of
Microsoft Office 2010. You must first uninstall any prerelease versions of
Microsoft Office 2010 products and associated technologies.
Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.
Oh well - that meant a trip to the control panel and 'Uninstall a program'. I selected the Office 2010 pre-release version and uninstalled it. Back to the installation DVD and I got:
Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version of
Microsoft Office 2010. You must first uninstall any prerelease versions of
Microsoft Office 2010 products and associated technologies.
Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.
Huh? I just uninstalled it! Maybe I needed to do a restart first? One restart later I inserted the installation DVD and got:
Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...
OK. Now let me just check I actually uninstalled the right version - Yep - it's gone and I remember that I had to remove Office 2007 before I could install the prerelease of 2010. Time to go visit Microsoft's site to see if there's a fix!
As usual, finding what I wanted on the MS site was a torturous business but at least their introduction of using Bing to search the site makes things a little easier. Eventually I copied out the error message and searched for that.
I found quite a few people were having the same problem and I eventually found a post on http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/officeinstall/thread/52c744aa-d1c5-4aec-9c52-d76bc05eea40 where a Microsoft Support Moderator suggested I run a tool called cleanc2r to fix the issue. I followed the link provided to get the tool and of course discovered it had been replaced by a different tool. Fortunately the link took me to the new location of this 'Fixit' tool and of course when I got there it referred to removing Office 2007 from Windows XP and not to Windows 7. back to Google search engine where I entered the error message AND "Windows 7"
This time I found another Microsoft Support Moderator who pointed at a page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301 This time the link actually worked!
The new page told me to do exactly what I had already done but if that didn't work I should use the 'Fix it' link below to remove the problem. This time there were three of them and I chose the one for Office 2010; Microsoft Fix it 50450.
Running it gave me a brief flash of a command window followed by the usual confirmation window to confirm I really wanted to use the program. A licence agreement window followed next followed by a window making a backup of the registry. Finally I got another brief flash of the command window and - nothing! 'A bit unsatisfactory' I thought ' I would have expected the program to tell me it was finished'.
Back to the Installation DVD and I got:
Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...
This was beginning to get tiresome! Back to the search engine and I followed a few more of the 29 results to find that all of them eventually pointed me back to the same page which I'd just tried. Eventually I found one saying the 'Fix it' link didn't always work first time and I should try it again!
Back to 'Fix it', the same procedure but this time the second command window stayed open and took ages to run through. Once it finished it was back to the installation DVD and I got:
Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...
More searching on Internet eventually found Microsoft instructions to delete a couple of registry entries, to clear temporary files from the computer and to empty the recycle bin. 5Gb of temporary files deletion later it was back to the installation DVD and:
Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...
At this point I began to wonder how someone who is not quite as computer literate as I would be coping. Back to the search engine.
Looking on the forums I found lots of people with the same issue who had all followed the Microsoft advice and still couldn't install Office 2010. Eventually I read something about making sure all Office ad-ons had been deleted including the 'Add a smile' feature installed with the pre-release version. Mine was still there and promptly got deleted and...
Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...
Out went the Windows Live Office stuff...
Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...
Out went 'Outlook Hotmail Connector (Funny! I never use Hotmail so I definitely didn't install that!) and...
SUCCESS! I was now the proud owner of an Office 2010 installation.
It only took me four and a half hours. Simple huh?
Finally I could get back to editing my book 'A Vested Interest.'
US Version | UK Version |
