Weird problems installing Access 97 on WIndows 2000 Profressional

[MM]

My Office 97 setup CD kept installing Access **2000**, not Access 97,
on W2K Pro!

After installation, I looked at Start/Programs and the Access icon was
the Access 2000 one, not the "golden key" icon of Access 97. When I
clicked on the icon, I briefly got a message about how Access was
being upgraded, then lo and behold Access 2000 came up.

Then I realised that this ONLY happens IF the CD autoruns and starts
up the installer front panel (the one that has three buttons "Install
Microsoft Office", "Key Information for Upgraders and New Users", and
"Explore the Office 97 ValuPack") and I install Office 97 from the
first button.

If I disallow autorun so that the panel doesn't appear and instead
click on Setup.Exe in the CD's root folder, then I DO end up with
Access 97 installed!

However, this is not the end of the problems, because when I click on
the Access 97 icon in the Programs menu, Windows complains that a
licence cannot be found on the machine.

Then I discovered that the likely cause of this was the Hatten.Ttf
font. Eh? How on earth can the presence of a particular font cause
such a problem. But anyway I renamed Hatten.Ttf to Hatten.xxx,
reinstalled and this time Access 97 ran okay.

HOWEVER! This is still not the end of the problems! I applied service
release SR1 successfully, but SR2 bombed, saying it couldn't find any
trace of SR1, which is ridiculous, since I just installed it and got
back a "successful" message afterwards.

So again I renamed Hatten.ttf and bingo, SR2 got installed. But what
peculiar behaviour by the various installation programs involved. (I
just need Access 97 on the PC in question to support older
applications.)

Anyone else had problems of this nature re Access 97 on W2K Pro?

MM

 

[James A. Fortune]

My Office 97 setup CD kept installing Access **2000**, not Access 97,
on W2K Pro!

After installation, I looked at Start/Programs and the Access icon was
the Access 2000 one, not the "golden key" icon of Access 97. When I
clicked on the icon, I briefly got a message about how Access was
being upgraded, then lo and behold Access 2000 came up.

Then I realised that this ONLY happens IF the CD autoruns and starts
up the installer front panel (the one that has three buttons "Install
Microsoft Office", "Key Information for Upgraders and New Users", and
"Explore the Office 97 ValuPack") and I install Office 97 from the
first button.

If I disallow autorun so that the panel doesn't appear and instead
click on Setup.Exe in the CD's root folder, then I DO end up with
Access 97 installed!

However, this is not the end of the problems, because when I click on
the Access 97 icon in the Programs menu, Windows complains that a
licence cannot be found on the machine.

Then I discovered that the likely cause of this was the Hatten.Ttf
font. Eh? How on earth can the presence of a particular font cause
such a problem. But anyway I renamed Hatten.Ttf to Hatten.xxx,
reinstalled and this time Access 97 ran okay.

HOWEVER! This is still not the end of the problems! I applied service
release SR1 successfully, but SR2 bombed, saying it couldn't find any
trace of SR1, which is ridiculous, since I just installed it and got
back a "successful" message afterwards.

So again I renamed Hatten.ttf and bingo, SR2 got installed. But what
peculiar behaviour by the various installation programs involved. (I
just need Access 97 on the PC in question to support older
applications.)

Anyone else had problems of this nature re Access 97 on W2K Pro?

MM

Microsoft installation software often uses the presence of certain
files as a kind of software switch. For example, the upgrade OS
versions of some older MS software might simply look for the existence
of a file such as win.exe in the correct directory to determine that
the upgrade is valid. If you have the prerequisite software and
knowledge of the name of the file the install software is looking for,
but want a clean install of the upgrade version, renaming a notepad
file to the file sought and placing it in the proper directory might
solve the problem. Sometimes even a registry setting is set to tell
the OS installation software whether to install the client or the
server version of the OS (perhaps it was for W2K Pro and Windows
Server 2K Pro). The hatten.ttf font is an example of such a software
switch.

As far as Access 2000 being installed by default, my best guess is
that you are using a laptop that has the OS and several other programs
pre-installed. The install program might get rerouted to the Access
2000 installation program sitting in the machine. That would explain
why using the A97 icon succeeded where the autorun failed (to do what
you wanted).

James A. Fortune
(e-mail address removed)

 

[MM]

Microsoft installation software often uses the presence of certain
files as a kind of software switch. For example, the upgrade OS
versions of some older MS software might simply look for the existence
of a file such as win.exe in the correct directory to determine that
the upgrade is valid. If you have the prerequisite software and
knowledge of the name of the file the install software is looking for,
but want a clean install of the upgrade version, renaming a notepad
file to the file sought and placing it in the proper directory might
solve the problem. Sometimes even a registry setting is set to tell
the OS installation software whether to install the client or the
server version of the OS (perhaps it was for W2K Pro and Windows
Server 2K Pro). The hatten.ttf font is an example of such a software
switch.

As far as Access 2000 being installed by default, my best guess is
that you are using a laptop that has the OS and several other programs
pre-installed. The install program might get rerouted to the Access
2000 installation program sitting in the machine. That would explain
why using the A97 icon succeeded where the autorun failed (to do what
you wanted).

James A. Fortune
(e-mail address removed)

Thanks. I'll check out the above points.

MM

 

[David-W-Fenton]

Then I discovered that the likely cause of this was the Hatten.Ttf
font. Eh? How on earth can the presence of a particular font cause
such a problem. But anyway I renamed Hatten.Ttf to Hatten.xxx,
reinstalled and this time Access 97 ran okay.

It's not a problem with Hatten.ttf. It's just that renaming that
particular font file happens to trick the installer into properly
installing.