Office 2003 installed w/ gpo Outlook fails - Event ID 1004

Hi cjharle,

Most likely you have a corrupt installer package sitting somewhere it shouldn't be.  Check out: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301 and then download the Installer Cleanup Utility noted in that article.

Good Luck!

Jeff
TechSoEasy

JeffAlan66 - That registry key does make sense but if you look @ the bottom of the page, he says after a reboot, the problem came back but referenced different registry keys.

Answers to Questions

1. We are not using roaming profiles
2. We did not try deleting just the existing mail profile, but I'm pretty sure that would work too.
3. Our PC Tech is out this week. I had asked him to try something similar to this what you suggested 1. Uninstall Office 2000 manually then reisinstall Office 2003 manually (but from the same administrative installation point, using the same .mst.)  See if we get the same problem. If the problem doesn't return, It's an issue w/ using the GPO to do the install.  

It looks like the problem lies with fact that the all users are power users on the machines, not Admin users. If the user is added to admin users, it works fine.

I was considering adding Authenticaed users to the group that grants admin rights to the PC's during the upgrade period, then taking it away after a few weeks. At that point all users would have had a chance to log in to Outlook once.  

I am going to look at the registry key option though. I want to see if it's there w/ a regular user. If not, we can place it there using a script.. If that works, it would be preferrable.

TechsoEasy - Why do you think this is a corrupt installer package? Have you seen this happen before? All other Office apps work without issue.

I have little time tonight to give much feedback, but a few quick things ...

Note that it should not be necessary for you to provide additional permissions to the user, in order to solve your problem.  My users who are not admins or power users are starting Office 2003 on workstations with both new or existing (updated from Office 2000 - Office 2003) installations.  I would hate to have to give up the ability to lock-down select users, just to enable them to use a standard application.

The idea that TechSoEasy passed along is also a sound theory.  I have seen threads somewhere that cover this in detail, so I would seriously dig a little deeper on his point.  Another related link that touches on this is here ...

http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t246399.html

Note at the beginning that the user notes that Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2003 are all working, while Outlook 2003 is an issue.  Near the bottom, you will see the following stated:

QUOTE(duva_ben @ Nov 20 2004, 17:37)
"Try this :

- Download the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility at http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/9...1bd/msicuu2.exe.

- In the Installed Products list, remove the entry corresponding to Microsoft Office 2003.

- You should be able to overwrite the current installation files by re-running the Microsoft Office 2003 Setup."

If this helps, pass along the points to TechSoEasy.

So I would run the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility on each PC affected? Management wants this upgrade to be completely hands-off (no machine visits). Are you saying that if the Cleanup utility fixes the problem on one PC, it proves I have a corrupt administrative installation point on the network? The Cleanup Utility doesn't appear to be something you can run on the adminstrative installation point.

Thanks for the time you're spending trying to help!

I was thinking you had a corrupt installer on the server, actually.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

Ok. I misunderstood. So I should run the installer Cleanup Utility on the server that has the Office 2003 Administrative Installation Point on it?

Run the utility... see what it shows... it won't do anything unless you instruct it to once it displays all the installer instances.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

Does manually creating the keys resolve this issue for the specific profile? If you have multiple users on the same PC with this issue does solving it for one also resolve it for the others?

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook]
"UserData"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common]
"UserData"=dword:00000001

We just tried to duplicate this problem for testing and the error did not happen. We're trying again to duplicate the error. Our testing steps are

Ghost machine w/ standard image
Place the machine in our Standard Desktop OU - This OU receives MS Office 2000, and other standard software.
Log into Outlook 2000 w/ a test user and send several emails
Move the computer to the security group associated with the Office 2003 GPO.
Boot the machine.. Office 2003 installs
Log into Outlook w/ test user

It seems that when we do this on a real user's machine, we get the error but every time we do the test scenario, it works..

We will try the registry keys once we can duplicate the problem. One thing to note though - After Outlook is opened one time by a user w/ admin rights on that machine, all subsequent users can successfully open Outlook.

After reviewing this thread again... I think I've found the answer... as Microsoft would say, "this is not a bug, the behavior is by design."

Check this out:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011401991033.aspx

Jeff
TechSoEasy

That makes sense but we are assigning the APP via GPO which that article says is a way around the problem.

Assign, publish, or advertise Office applications.
You can use Group Policy software installation and management to assign or publish Office 2003. You can also log on to the computer as an administrator and run Setup with the /j command-line option to advertise Office.


We're getting ready to try this again on a real user's computer today. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks,
Cammie

We have narrowed the problem down to the User Profile. 2003 successfully installed on 3 separate user's existing machines. None of these users were local admins. Then we decide since everything is working, to install it on our bosses boss machine. Of course we get the error : "THe operation failed due to an installation proble, Restart OUtlook and try again. If the probelm persists, please reinstall". THis only came up for the primary user who happens to be a local admin on his machine. All other users who logged on after the upgrade were able to get into Outlook. The primary users could not successfully open Outlook 'til we blew away his profile. Now it's working fine.

We are trying to determine what about the profile is causing this error..

This problem was resolved by re-creating the transform associated with the .msi.