Setup Not Completed Successfully with Workstation Setup

ID: Q146198

The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Office for Windows 95, version 7.0
  • Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, version 7.0
  • Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows 95, version 7.0
  • Microsoft Word for Windows 95, version 7.0

WARNING: The information in this article has not been confirmed or tested by Microsoft. Some or all of the information in this article has been taken from unconfirmed customer reports. ANY USE BY YOU OF THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS ARTICLE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. Microsoft provides this information "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose.

SYMPTOMS

When you perform a workstation installation of Microsoft Office 7.0, you may receive the following error message:

Setup was not completed successfully


CAUSE

This problem may occur when all of the following conditions are true:

  • You are using IBM LAN Server 4.0 network server software.

    NOTE: This problem has also been reported under the following network software:
    DEC Pathworks version 4.0, 5.0D, and 5.1
    IBM OS/2
    LANtastic
    Novell NetWare versions 3.0, and 4.0
    Microsoft LAN Manager
    -and-


  • Your network administrator performs an administrative installation (setup /a) to a folder on the server.

    -and-


  • You then perform a workstation installation from a workstation.
This behavior occurs because the administrative .stf file, Setup.stf, on the server calls a custom action, RegistrationEngine, which fails without warning when the Setup program installs Microsoft Excel. The Setup program then fails.


WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, delete the reference to the RegistrationEngine custom action in the Setup.stf file on the server.

WARNING: This modification may not be supported by Microsoft. Microsoft support professionals will support some modifications to a BACKUP copy of the Setup.stf file. Note also that while support professionals may help customers modify specific lines of an STF, we will not rewrite the entire file in order to achieve a desired configuration. As a general rule, support is limited to options that can normally be changed by a user during a standard installation of the application.

To modify the Setup.stf file, use the following steps:

  1. Copy the Setup.stf file and rename it.


  2. In Microsoft Excel 5.0 or later, open the Setup.stf file.


  3. In the Text Import Wizard dialog box, click Next until step 3 of the wizard appears.


  4. In the Text Import Wizard - Step 3 Of 3 dialog box, under Data Preview, drag the vertical scrollbar down until Object ID appears in the Data Preview window. Click the first column to select it. Hold the SHIFT key down, drag the horizontal scrollbar to the right until the last column appears in the Data Preview window, and click the last column. All of the columns should be selected.


  5. Under Column Data Format, click Text and click Finish.

    IMPORTANT: If you do not click the Text option in this step, Microsoft Excel reads some of the entries in the edited .stf file incorrectly. When this occurs, you receive Setup Parse error messages during setup.


  6. Select columns A-K, click Column on the Format menu and click AutoFit Selection.


  7. On the Edit menu, click Find and search for "RegistrationEngine" (without the quotation marks).


  8. Write down the Object Id number that is in the same row in column A.


  9. In column F only, search for the Object Id number that you wrote down in step 8 and delete the Object Id number. Leave the other numbers intact.

    For example, if you determine that Object Id 4378 in column A corresponds to the text string "RegistrationEngine," search for 4378 in column F and delete the number.


  10. Click Save on the File menu, click Text (Tab delimited) in the Save File as Type box, and click OK.


  11. Run the Setup program to perform a workstation installation.


NOTE: Do not use an MS-DOS editor to modify the Setup.stf file. An MS-DOS editor replaces tabs with spaces and causes a Setup error.

Because you disable the custom action that registers Microsoft Excel file types in the previous steps, you must manually register each Microsoft Excel file type.

NOTE: To modify the Setup.stf file, you must have the correct permissions on the server. Please contact your network administrator before you attempt to modify any Setup file on the server.

The Network Installation Wizard 1.1 has an option under Office Options to "Modify setup for LanServer compatibilty" that may also resolve this problem. For more information about obtaining the Network Installation Wizard, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q232967 OFF: How to Obtain the Network Installation Wizard

NOTE: You cannot import the Excel7.reg file to register the Microsoft Excel file types because the file requires a custom action to work.


STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.


MORE INFORMATION

For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q111248 XL: Saving .STF File in Excel May Cause Setup Error Messages

Q147127 OFF7: "Setup Error 907 Object.." With Workstation Setup
Q119357 OFF: "How to Create a Custom Installation Script" (WC1046)

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbnetwork kbsetup offwin
Version : WINDOWS:7.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb


Last Reviewed: July 2, 1999
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