? 4 U techies - uninstall MS Office

Rennie Heuer

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
11,607
Location
Constantine, MI
The company i work for offers MS Office to its employees personal use as an 'extra seat' on its contract with MS. Through this program I was able to purchase MS Office Pro for $29. Unfortunately, my little part of the company is being sold off and therefore my 'seat' will no longer be legal. Chances are I could continue to use it indefinitely, but it would not be right and I want to do this correctly. So, I purchased a new copy of MS Office.

Here's the question. I've been told that to install it over the current copy might not update all the serial number/user info and that I might not loose the little "Not for commercial use" banner in the title bar. The recommendation has been to uninstall office and then install my new copy. I've not had a lot of good luck uninstalling the more complex programs in the past and I don't want to fry my laptop. Is there a safe and clean way to do this?:dunno:
 
Have you tried simply going to control panel and clicking 'uninstall'?
Be sure to back-up any documents you don't want to lose.
That would be my first choice, but I wanted to get some feedback before throwing the switch just in case there were some issues others have experienced.
 
Paul is on to something there, but in the past I went to Control Panel / Add or Remove Programs / [select] Microsoft Office / [click] Remove

Since you purchased a new copy it would be best to do a full install, license key, settings, etc. I have found in the past installing over a copy can be problematic.

You will need to register (activate) the new copy and establish document paths, but it should not take forever. I would suggest running Office Update after the install to make sure are security patches are up to date.
 
prefernce's

hey rennie i dont know how office works but in my software uses i have templates and preferences or print styles that i wouldnt want to go away.. you should check for those if you have any thing you dont want to have to remake those files should work in the new program and they are yours not the company's just save them to another folder somewhere
 
Paul is on to something there, but in the past I went to Control Panel / Add or Remove Programs / [select] Microsoft Office / [click] Remove

Since you purchased a new copy it would be best to do a full install, license key, settings, etc. I have found in the past installing over a copy can be problematic.

You will need to register (activate) the new copy and establish document paths, but it should not take forever. I would suggest running Office Update after the install to make sure are security patches are up to date.
OK - tried the uninstall - got this message
Untitled.jpg
 
Well, 6 hours, running of a separate uninstaller, a registry repair program, and rebuilding the registry to its original state, and I finally got the new office product installed.

Whew. I'm sure it would have gone smoother had I any idea of what I was doing.
 
Well, 6 hours, running of a separate uninstaller, a registry repair program, and rebuilding the registry to its original state, and I finally got the new office product installed.

Whew. I'm sure it would have gone smoother had I any idea of what I was doing.

Sorry I tried to warn you, when you uninstall Office the keys don't get removed. When you tried to reinstall you were trying to install a retail version with the original OEM key. That is why they allow changing keys.

The other odd thing about office is you can have many versions installed at the same time all in different paths but only one runs.
 
Top