You can't fully remove every piece of Office without the install CD,
unless you kept the install files, which I'm not sure was an option in
Excel 97.
If you want to remove Office, first delete the program files folder
for Office, typically C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office. Then, you'll
probably want to remove some of the Office-related registry keys. To
do this, you'll need to use RegEdit. On the Windows Start menu, choose
Run and enter RegEdit and press OK.
In RegEdit, you'll see the hierarchical view of the registry in a Tree
View on the left side of the screen. Navigate to the following keys
and delete them:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.doc
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xls
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Application
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Application
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office
When you work with the Registry via RegEdit, all changes are "live"
and take effect immediately. There is no "undo" and no "close without
save". Be careful with the Registry -- if you delete the wrong key,
you'll have problems ranging from minor annoyances all the way up to
not being able to start Windows. Be careful.
These steps will remove Excel and Word. The steps for PowerPoint and
Access are essentially the same.
There will still be pieces of Office left on the machine, but the
steps above should remove most of it. Just as an aside, even with the
install media, I don't think it is ever possible to remove *every*
trace of Office from a machine. Office insinuates itself into dozens
of nooks and crannies of Windows and you can never really get rid of
everything.
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP 1998 - 2010
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com
[email on web site]
