Office 4.x: "Insert Disk" Prompt When Removing Components

• Microsoft Office for Windows, versions 4.2c, 4.3c

SYMPTOMS

When you run the Microsoft Office Setup program in maintenance mode, and you choose to remove one of the Microsoft Office applications for the first time, you are prompted to insert one of the Setup disks to continue with the Setup program.

CAUSE

Normally, you are not prompted to insert a floppy disk in order to remove any of the components from your hard drive when you run the Microsoft Office Setup program in maintenance mode.

This behavior occurs when you install Microsoft Office from floppy disks, and you chose the Custom/Complete installation option. The problem occurs whether you use the Distribution Media Format (DMF) floppy disks, the 1.2 megabyte (MB) floppy disks or the 1.44 MB floppy disks. The problem occurs only when you choose to remove one of the Microsoft Office applications, such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint, and only occurs the first time you remove one of the applications.

This behavior occurs because of a problem with the Microsoft Office Setup Table File, SETUP.STF. When you run Setup, some of the components that you choose to install are not recorded as being "installed," even though they are copied to your hard drive and registered correctly during the installation.

When you run Setup in maintenance mode and you choose to remove a Microsoft Office application for the first time, and you are prompted to insert one of the Setup disks, Setup compares the files on the Setup disk to those installed on your hard drive, and records that these files are installed. After this problem occurs, the information is recorded correctly, and you should not be prompted for the Setup disks again when you run Setup in maintenance mode.

Note that when using DMF disks, if Setup is started from the icon in Program Manager, after asking for disk 10, Setup reports an error with disk 10. To avoid this message, start the setup program from Disk 1 Setup instead of Program Manager.

For additional information, please see the following article(s) in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q121802
   TITLE     : "Could Not Read From File..." Running Maintenance Mode Setup

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.