BleepingComputer.com: MS patches fail to configure Office2003

The last 4 Microsoft Office patches fail. No, they do not fail installing. They fail configuring Office 2003. That's on a fully patched XP-SP3 home, Office2003-SP3. First three failed early in August. Now there are four (one is a replacement, web component is new). All fail configuring. I tried as user with admin rights. I tried as Administrator. I tried with AV, firewall, HIPS, everything I can think of shut off. No go. Typical short message (there are many versions of the same thing):

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all end with a "The update cannot be applied" error message and some msi logs invariably say

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The KB numbers are 969603(word),969681(excel),972688(junk filter, replaces failed 971931), 947391(office web components).

There are more than a zillion articles and MS helps on the MS site and generally on the web about error 1603, about failed downloads, failed installs, failed connections, failed everything EXCEPT the one I need "configuring Office 2003" after the installer ran for a few minutes. It was fine on prior updates. Why it suddenly failed in August??????????

I do need MS very good junk mail filter, but otherwise, considering I do not use Office 2003 on the web, don't open links, don't use MS help, etc. Do I really have to patch? It's tiring to fight those bad patches.

Bump
The problem persists with 5 updates by now.

This dude at the bottom seems to have fixed something similar http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/...amp;m=1&p=1 Scroll down to "Here's what worked" but you probably already did that.

Thanks for replying.
Yes, one of my non-fixes was "RUN AS" administrator.
Another was logging in as Administrator.
And Office repair was very painful (because I previously deleted some stuff I didn't use, llike onenote maybe) and it was needed back for the repair, so I had to use the silly useless hunk of a recovery disk as well. Plus typing in the 20+ digits of a key for Office has never been fun. And those repairs kill my settings, need I say more.

MS suggests detail logging. so I had to change the registry, and the logs in the \temp directory were no different from what the MS was putting out. It's such a frustrating waste of time.

And of course the yellow shield is staring at me remind me to install the updates, and I sometimes do and of course they fail ... ARRGGGHHH

I see the problems with 1603 http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/200.../01/446328.aspx MSI "powerful"

That's good link, I haven't seen that one and the links within, so will study.
At this point, the "return value 3" is not telling me much.

So I see the 'return value 3' and it makes no sense to me.
I downloaded full package from MS (one of their suggestions is to download the patch separately). It runs, it installs, but fails configuring. But look at this strange occurence (what failed download!!!!) of that phrase (I included lines before and after for context):

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This is soooo weird. How can ANYBODY be expected to understand this kind of stuff I wonder.
I'll attack it tomorrow some more.

This blog implies the log files start with "msi"
The office logs I get are OHotfix(00001)_Msi.log where the number goes from 1 to 5 at this point.
Also OHotfix(00001).log exists.

Interesting note about the logging options being overridden by the installer. That's exactly what I saw. Not only that, when the installation runs, they actually delete my added registry entries.

I think OpenOffice more than anything else but remember there is always Windows Installer Cleanup Utility http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301 If you decide to start from scratch probably a good idea to avoid problems returning. In summary they say "Do not worry" ;)

Thanks again. This is hopeless.

One, there is NOTHING WRONG with the windows installer. Windows updates work. Office2003 updates fail configuring Office2003 after early June of this year.

Not sure about the need for your reference to OpenOffice. I know OpenOffice is nice 'till you need to use macros and other 'advanced' features of Excel, and the speed of MS Office beats OpenOffice big time. These annoyances will not make me work OpenOffice since I have Office2003 Professional from Microsoft.

If they would only fix the patches so they can install.

A call to the 1-866-PCSafety did nothing. No solution. They don't know. They don't even know about the existence of logs of Office fixes. All they know is the windowsupdate.log, work it to death and no solution.

I will report back if this EVER gets resolved. I'm annoyed I don't have an up to date junk filter.

Maybe you've seen this http://www.avidardik.com/2006/02/19/solvin...office-updates/ Similar problem but an older article on how he solved it and I quote below:

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http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en
Method #13 Disable and then re-enable the Local Installation Source by using the Local Installation Source tool http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304498/en-us

Any chance you've used a registry cleaner around the time the office updates starting failing to configure?

Tork, right on the money!
Yes, a review of few logs showed a registry cleaner in action where I deleted some entries dealing with D drive setup of Office. I brought those items back and all is well. All the updates worked.

The registry hint was burried deep in the various MS knowledgebase articles. I did not try the LIS tool because it just did not seem like it would have anything to do with "configuring" Office.

Thanks, Tork. Oh, and please, don't remind me that registry cleaners are dangerous and powerful things