Office Manuals Alias Not Created After Reinstallation

• Microsoft Office for the Macintosh, version 4.2.1-CD

SYMPTOMS

When you run the Microsoft Office Setup in maintenance mode and choose to Reinstall the Office files, the Microsoft Office Manuals alias is not created.

CAUSE

The documentation for Microsoft Office 4.2.1-CD is online. When you perform a minimum installation of Microsoft Office 4.2.1 from a CD-ROM disk, an alias is created for the online documentation on the CD so that the files are not copied to your computer's hard disk. If this alias is removed or damaged, it is not created again when you reinstall Microsoft Office.

This behavior occurs because the actual Microsoft Office Manuals file exists on the CD and is not copied to your hard disk; therefore, Setup marks the file as not being installed. When you reinstall Office, the alias file is not created, because Setup does not detect that the file has ever been installed.

Note that this problem does not occur with other aliases created by Setup when you perform a workstation installation of Microsoft Office. These aliases ARE created again when you reinstall Microsoft Office.

WORKAROUND

To work around this behavior, you can create a new alias for the Microsoft Office Manuals file. To do this, use the following steps:

1. Insert the Office 4.2.1-CD disk in the CD-ROM drive.

2. In Finder, double-click the Microsoft Office 4.2.1 CD icon.

3. Double-click the Install Disk 1 folder, and then Double-click the Microsoft Office Manuals folder.

4. Click the Microsoft Office Manuals icon, and choose Make Alias from the File menu (in Finder).

5. A message appears indicating that the disk is locked. Choose OK to create the alias on the Desktop.

6. Drag the alias from the Desktop to the Microsoft Office folder.

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.