Microsoft office upgrades

[Tucker]

Last night I was playing computer guy for a neighbor and built up a new PC and installed Windows 2000.

All went well until I tried to install Office 2000 and discovered that I had brought along an upgrade CD set. It kept telling me that it couldn't find any "qualifying products" already installed. So, I thought "Ok, I'll just go get my Office 97 CD and install that first". Run home and back, start the install and find out that the 97 CD is an upgrade too.

I was about to give up when I tried a desperation ploy. When the program griped about not finding a qualifying product it asked me if I wanted to try to browse for one myself. I said sure, and told it to look on the CD.

It worked like a champ.

Further testing shows that it works for every upgrade cd that I could find. OS's, Office products, development tools, anything.

Just tell them to look in the mirror

btw, there's no piracy here, the guy did buy the Win2K CD and I sold him a boxed Office set... I just didn't bring the right box home... but I just had to share this stereotypical Microsoft wierdness.

 

[LRRH]

interesting...I will ahve to give it a try....

 

[RichP]

You are not supposed to post stuff like that on an open forum. The next critical update will fix that little hole....
OEM builders also have a special boot floppy that allows all the software that is being installed on the customer computer to be installed w/o the system builder entering any keys. It's only when the end user gets it and turns it on for the first time that they have to enter them. Found out thru an error that iffen you did the critical updates from MS site the next time it booted in normal mode vs audit mode it would not ask for keys Ever