Often, I do not update installed products. It is sometimes just too painful!! I work with client's problems from updates gone bad. So, I am always reluctant to update my own - well installed and clearly working well - software. Today, I made an exception. I updated Microsoft Office.
While I hate to update, I also feel that I have to keep current. To that end, I do update, but never, never to the latest version as soon as it is released. I always wait for the bugs to be worked out. So, today, I decided to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2007. I decided that it would be a piece of cake and would not be difficult and would not take too long. Boy, was I wrong!
It took at least 3 hours and it was very painful. The installation kept wanting to know where certain files were. After starting the installation a number of times, I finally figured out that it was looking for a handful of files and could not seem to find them on the installation CD.
I tried to find info on the web and there was not much. But, I did run across one article on the Microsoft site that seemed particularly relevant. It said to be sure that the CD was clean and not scratched. Of course it was - it was a new CD.
But, to test it out, I tried to copy the CD files to my hard drive. WOW - it could not copy 3 of them. I took the CD out and looked at it. It was dirty and scratched. I used a standard CD cleaner/polisher and tried again. Success!! It could read all of the files and the installation worked just fine.
Now I just have to figure out why my Outlook Express is spell checking in French!! C'est magnifique!!
UPDATE: When Office 2007 is installed, it deletes all existing language files. Even the ones that are used by Outlook Express. So, to solve the problem, I did what Microsoft wanted me to do anyway - I switched to Outlook. It is something that I have wanted to do. But, Outlook Express is such a workhorse and doesn't have the bloated bells and whistles that I don't need. But, I was beginning to "need" some of the Outlook features that are not in OE. So, now I am an Outlook user. I feel that I failed to solve the problem, but I do have functioning software and do not need to use le francais!!
