Installing MS Office SR-2 on Vista

[V Green]

Just a quick note on what I found that I had to do
to get Office 97 SR-2 (the last service pack avail.
for those of us use Office 97) to install on Vista.

When running the patch, it would bomb part way through,
referring me to a log file for more info on why. Logfile
is located at Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Setup
and is named 97sr2_X.log where X is the number of times you've
tried to install. The file could be at a different location
on your machine. The log file ended with an error shown as:

--------------
Move C:\Windows\Fonts\tahoma.ttf to C:\Windows\Fonts\sr198EA.tmp
Unable to open C:\Windows\Fonts\tahoma.ttf
sr2 patch fail
--------------

Also in the logfile was this stuff:

--------------
C:\Windows\Fonts\comic.ttf will not be patched because it's version >= sr2 file
version
Version found was (5.0.0.0)
C:\Windows\Fonts\comicbd.ttf will not be patched because it's version >= sr2
file version
Version found was (5.0.0.0)
--------------

So, as part of its install, SR-2 is also updating fonts
based on their version number...

Checking the Tahoma font in question showed a version
number of 5.00, which would seem to be "larger" than
the version number that the installer was checking for.

Being as that SR-2 had installed successfully on a couple
XP machines I have, I checked the version of Tahoma on
those boxes. The file size was different, and Properties
for it showed nothing at all.

So, I copied the Fonts folder from the XP box to a scratch
directory on the Vista, and then used the Fonts applet
in Control Panel to install the fonts that the installer
was bitching about from that folder to the Vista box, allowing
it to overwrite.

Voila! SR-2 now succeeds.

Hope this helps those of you who, like me, have NO reason to
run any newer version of Office, preferring a smaller, faster
package with minimal bloat.

 

[Bill Yanaire]

Bring up Windows Explorer.

In the Address bar enter: www.google.com

Search for "office 97 vista"

READ.

 

[V Green]

Bring up Windows Explorer.

In the Address bar enter: www.google.com

Search for "office 97 vista"

READ.

OK, noted.

I particularly like their solution of editing the setup file,
and was not aware of the ability to set command line switches
when extracting the SR.

Interestingly, the "old" verisions of the fonts I copied across
behave identically to the Vista versions and are 1/3 the filesize.

Hmmm....

 

[Kevin]

Just a quick note on what I found that I had to do
to get Office 97 SR-2 (the last service pack avail.
for those of us use Office 97) to install on Vista.

When running the patch, it would bomb part way through,
referring me to a log file for more info on why. Logfile
is located at Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Setup
and is named 97sr2_X.log where X is the number of times you've
tried to install. The file could be at a different location
on your machine. The log file ended with an error shown as:

--------------
Move C:\Windows\Fonts\tahoma.ttf to C:\Windows\Fonts\sr198EA.tmp
Unable to open C:\Windows\Fonts\tahoma.ttf
sr2 patch fail
--------------

Also in the logfile was this stuff:

--------------
C:\Windows\Fonts\comic.ttf will not be patched because it's version >= sr2
file
version
Version found was (5.0.0.0)
C:\Windows\Fonts\comicbd.ttf will not be patched because it's version >=
sr2
file version
Version found was (5.0.0.0)
--------------

So, as part of its install, SR-2 is also updating fonts
based on their version number...

Checking the Tahoma font in question showed a version
number of 5.00, which would seem to be "larger" than
the version number that the installer was checking for.

Being as that SR-2 had installed successfully on a couple
XP machines I have, I checked the version of Tahoma on
those boxes. The file size was different, and Properties
for it showed nothing at all.

So, I copied the Fonts folder from the XP box to a scratch
directory on the Vista, and then used the Fonts applet
in Control Panel to install the fonts that the installer
was bitching about from that folder to the Vista box, allowing
it to overwrite.

Voila! SR-2 now succeeds.

Hope this helps those of you who, like me, have NO reason to
run any newer version of Office, preferring a smaller, faster
package with minimal bloat.

I installed my copy of Office 97 Pro, with SR2, on my Vista Premium system
with no issues whatsoever. I chose to install only Word and Excel, however.
Nothing else.

 

[V Green]

I installed my copy of Office 97 Pro, with SR2, on my Vista Premium system
with no issues whatsoever. I chose to install only Word and Excel, however.
Nothing else.

Mine was an after-the-fact application of SR-2, I'm not sure
if you mean that yours was integrated into the install?

That probably makes a difference.

I also only installed Word and Excel, but my base was
97 SBE instead of Pro.

 

[Kevin]

Mine was an after-the-fact application of SR-2, I'm not sure
if you mean that yours was integrated into the install?

Me too. I installed 97 Pro, unpatched, on my Vista system. I then
immediately applied the SR2 patch. It is my understanding that the version
of Outlook included with 97 Pro, patched or not, is not compatible with
Vista at all.