BleepingComputer.com: Windows Updates for Office Products

Hello,

I was hoping that someone could answer my quick question. I'm not 100% sure that this is the correct forum or if it should be in Windows Xp, so my apologies if it's in the wrong one.

I had to reinstall Office 2003 and was wondering if you have to re-download and/or uninstall and reinstall the Windows Updates for Office Software? I know these updates fix some pretty vulnerable issues in Office and would like to ensure that they are working on my PC.

More generally, do Windows Updates patch the Windows OS or the application/program itself? (I have no idea if this makes sense)

Thanks in advance for any insight.

K_Kid

I would go to the Windows Update site (or use the manual update) and see if there are any updates available for your computer and software that you have installed.

I considered that but won't Windows Update detect the already installed updates and claim that there are no new updates? Either way it won't matter until tomorrow b/c, as usual, UPS's 2nd day delivery has taking longer than two days and I will not be able to re-install until they deliver the new disk.

To clarify my question a bit(i hope): if one has already downloaded all the updates that are available for Office 2003 and then has to re-install Office 2003, are those updates still valid? I guess my thinking is that the updates are still on the machine but you have installed Office over them or something.(?) Hence my (horribly misinformed) question about Windows Update working on the OS as a whole or the products/programs/applications specifically. And just to be clear, I'm a complete newb and this is all based on my limited (and ignorant) conjecture of what is going on. So if I'm speaking out of my a$$, please feel free to tell me.

Office2003 SP2 and SP3 issued long ago might be on your machine if you saved them
Security updates - most unlikely, though you can see in Control Panel - Add/Remove programs - with the Show updates button checked - if they're listed under MS Office. But I think that's really useless information since the updates change the Office applications, and if the applications aren't there and you revert to the original, there is no way on earth the applications can be updated.

If you run Windows update manually it examines your computer for what's needed.
About 2 years ago I had to reinstall Office and that's the route I took.
They will not push the old, old updates which they bundled into SP2 and SP3, so while all this takes eternity, you will end up with all the updates you need.

Ok, I will make sure to use the manual update. I think this is what mysterygames was suggesting but I'm too dense to follow.

I have a few more question if you don't mind: If there are some MS Office updates in add/remove programs should I un-install them before re-installing MS Office? Or will the new updates load over themselves? And just so I understand, running Windows Update manually will check the Office programs/applications specifically to determine if it needs changing/updating and does not just check to see if these updates are present on the computer?

Thanks for your informative advice. It is appreciated.