Help with re-installing office 2003

[nat1313]

Hi,
I've lost my original CD for Office Pro 2003 but I need to reinstall it as
something seems to be corrupted.
I'm not technical at all so need help/advice on what to do with a brown box
I have with Microsoft OEM System Builder Pack (Office Pro 2003 Win32 EN w/SP2 1pk DSP OEI CD) written on it. I was sent this directly by my insurance company two years ago after I was burgled and my computer was stolen. I have no idea what this is or what to do with it - system builder pack sounds scary to me, so have never opened the box and it is still sealed.
Will this let me re-install it? And do I need anything else? The website
said something about preinstallation kits and I have no idea what they're on
about. I'm scared to try incase I mess up my computer. I'm quite desperate
and on the verge of throwing the damn thing out of the window as I urgently
need to get to reports I can't currently access.
Many thanks for any help/insights!

[renegade600]

you will need that cd. If it was registered with microsoft, you should be able to get a replacement through them.

that systems builder pack is only good for a newly built computer that never had an operating system installed on it before.

[nat1313]

Wow, thanks for the quick reply!
I wonder why I got sent the system builder pack by the insurance company? Any ideas what I should do with it as it's obviously no use to me?
I am going to have to tear the house apart now looking for the cd... but thanks for the reply and saving me from making more of a mess of things! : )

[renegade600]

Originally Posted by nat1313

Wow, thanks for the quick reply!
I wonder why I got sent the system builder pack by the insurance company? Any ideas what I should do with it as it's obviously no use to me?
I am going to have to tear the house apart now looking for the cd... but thanks for the reply and saving me from making more of a mess of things! : )

I never heard of an insurance company sending replacement software so you may want to contact them to find out what is going on.

[nat1313]

It was 2 years ago and it's been sitting in a cupboard as I didn't know what to do with it. They sent me direct replacements for most of my stolen things. Maybe I'll put it on Ebay if it's of use to someone.

[smurfy]

Hi nat1313, welcome to CTH.
Let's take a huge step backwards for a minute.

You mention that "something seems to be wrong with" your Office 2003 installation.

Can you describe the problems you are having?

How was Office 2003 installed on this system if the installation media has never been opened? Did the claim settlement replace the PC with the software pre-installed as well as supplying the seperate installation media pack?

Dan - we do it all the time, if it was part of the loss, then the claimant is entitled to replacement media/licences.

Note: Since 2005, Microsoft OEM licences are much stricter. That OEM pack will be licenced for your machine only and it will not be legal to onsell it, however it should be usable if we do need to reinstall Office.

[nat1313]

Hi Smurfy,
2 1/2 years ago my desktop computer was stolen while I was away at xmas. Fortunately everything was backed up on an external hard drive - not being too technical, as even less so back then, I just copied the whole c drive over. It took ages for the insurance to be sorted as lots of things were taken and I kept discovering yet more things that had gone over several months. Ironically I was given a laptop that xmas for my studies, so was able to reinstall software I had backed up (I now wonder if I was allowed to do this!? ). The insurance randomly sent me things over the next 6 months like replacement mp3 player and Norton and the OEM thing, things I would have rather replaced myself, but I couldn't be bothered to argue as I was trying to get the house safe, secure and trying to feel ok about living there again. I did say I didn't want a new desktop though as I had my new laptop, and was scared the burglars would come back once things had been replaced, and take them again.
Anyway, when trying to install the speech recognition in word from the c drive it kept saying fatal error (but not telling me what) and then randomly giving me the blue screen, and also saying it couldn't find files that were backed up on the external hard drive. It was also doing other things like in Word it would suddenly turn all my text to symbols if I pressed return for a new paragraph, and would take ages to open documents and randomly shut down something I was working on without saving it. I trawled help pages for hours looking for solutions and did things like turning Norton scanning off, deleting the normal.dot, and then found something about an a/ switch or something like that, so when I still had problems it told me to completely reinstall.
I'm a student, so am going to abandon it and get Office 2007 from uni at a discounted price as it's driving me nuts, and the OEM thing scares me as I really don't want to do it wrong and mess things up more.
The brown box with the OEM System Builder pack it in says "If you do not open this package: The entire unopened package may be distributed to another system builder. Because an unopened package is not considered 'individual software license', it can be distributed by itself, without any accompanying hardware". Does this mean I can sell it on, as I don't know what to do with it and it seems a waste sitting in the cupboard??

[smurfy]

Originally Posted by nat1313

... Fortunately everything was backed up on an external hard drive - not being too technical, as even less so back then, I just copied the whole c drive over. ...so was able to reinstall software I had backed up (I now wonder if I was allowed to do this!? ).

OK, that explains why Office is not working properly. As you have discovered, it is possible to just copy the installed directories from one computer (or backup copy) to another, but without actually installing the product into the Windows Registry, many things will not work properly.
And you are correct, technically, no, you were not allowed to do this.

The insurance randomly sent me things over the next 6 months like replacement mp3 player and Norton and the OEM thing, things I would have rather replaced myself, but I couldn't be bothered to argue as I was trying to get the house safe, secure and trying to feel ok about living there again. I did say I didn't want a new desktop though as I had my new laptop, and was scared the burglars would come back once things had been replaced, and take them again.

Understood, I've worked for an insurance company for over 20 years, this is common.

Anyway, when trying to install the speech recognition in word from the c drive it kept saying fatal error (but not telling me what) and then randomly giving me the blue screen, and also saying it couldn't find files that were backed up on the external hard drive. It was also doing other things like in Word it would suddenly turn all my text to symbols if I pressed return for a new paragraph, and would take ages to open documents and randomly shut down something I was working on without saving it. I trawled help pages for hours looking for solutions and did things like turning Norton scanning off, deleting the normal.dot, and then found something about an a/ switch or something like that, so when I still had problems it told me to completely reinstall.

As mentioned above, the only way to fix this is a proper install.

I'm a student, so am going to abandon it and get Office 2007 from uni at a discounted price as it's driving me nuts, and the OEM thing scares me as I really don't want to do it wrong and mess things up more.

Good plan, although I would strongly suggest deleting the 2003 directories when you come to install 2007. The OEM install would have worked but...

The brown box with the OEM System Builder pack it in says "If you do not open this package: The entire unopened package may be distributed to another system builder. Because an unopened package is not considered 'individual software license', it can be distributed by itself, without any accompanying hardware". Does this mean I can sell it on, as I don't know what to do with it and it seems a waste sitting in the cupboard??

Seems like it's OK to on-sell doesn't it?
It's an odd thing for your insurer to supply as a replacement but they aren't software licencing experts, they would just be looking at the bottom line of the claim settlement and that would be the cheapest way to replace your licenced software.
Just be sure to fully describe what it is when selling it. I don't think there's any obligation on your part to ensure you sell it to a "system builder", but you need to make sure the prospective purchaser knows they will need to comply with Microsoft's terms.