Office XP Upgrade from 97

[CChong]

Does anyone know an easy way to upgrade office 97 to XP while using the MST files?

I have created them, and it doesn't uninstall the Office97, like it does when ran from the CD.
All questions are answered the same, yet the old app is still there.

I have tried using custom actions referencing the GUID, yet it still shows up there, or i get 1720 errors, and with very little help from the support, i'm losing my mind.

Has anyone ran an major app upgrade or even this one, with success?

William

[prostetnic]

never gonna happen.

the repackager doesn't seem to be able to do this. You can however create a custom action, give it a low/high(depends on your point of view) number in the install execute process and get it to do it for you. (run the old uninst exe.) I have so far not managed to get this to work though.

As a stopgap I am using AutoIT to script the uninstall and answer the 97 deinstaller, then start the installshield/msi installer. There probably is a way to do it using developer..but good luck finding it.

[CChong]

Well, I did run the custom action, and more times than not it doesn't uninstall it. I do enter the GUID, and actually had Tech Support help me with the custom action creation, and still, it resides.

I know there is a tool out there that is on the Microsoft Office website, for the Office Resources tool kit. It creates an MST, however I'm not having much luck with it. If I created one MST using Tuner, and then add the one created with the Tool Kit, it doesn't seem really to work. It doesn't uninstall this.

If anyone has had any luck at all, I would like to know how, because this has been balding experience.

Thanks!

William :confused:

[prostetnic]

microsoft strikes back 😞

i have been testing this myself as i have to rollout xp to 200 users in 2 weeks (but from german 97 to english XP) and have so far had the same problem as you. A really crappy way i found to do it was...

1: install xp into EXACTLY the same location as 97.
2: Use the compnent view and delete the uninstall strings for office97 (dont scream..) (hklm/soft/ms/win/curr/uninst
3: do the same for the office addons if you have any.
4: hope it is no less stable than it normally is..which is fairly difficult to achieve 🙂

it did work, the uninstall option was gone the office xp was installed and you didnt have the option to uninstall it any more. BUT I AM NOT SURE THIS IS A GOOD IDEA. still i have been using said XP now for 3 days and it doesnt seem any the worse for it.

[CChong]

OK - Here is what I found.

First, if you created an install of Office 97 using Developer, then you can do it pretty easily.

First, you need to open the MSI/ISM file. In the general properties, you need to find the "UPGRADE CODE". Take this (And take note of the Version Number as well) code, and you can do the following:

1: On a clean machine, run Tuner and start the creation of a transform for Office 2000/XP (doesn't matter which vsn you are going to)

2: Once you are done creating the MST, you have to go to the upgrade table in the direct editor, and add the "UPGRADE CODE" guid and then make the min version the number that the version is of your ISM of Office 97 and then make the max version the higher version you see listed....here is the confusing part. If you created the Office97 with a version of 97, then you will have to change the version MAX in the "Upgrade" table to one higher (since this is a full upgrade) so changing it from 10.00.0000 to 98.00.0000 will work.

3: Build it, and then test on a PC that has a Developer Created Office 97 build on it.

THIS WILL UNINSTALL YOUR OLD MSI BUILD OF OFFICE97 AND INSTALL OFFICE XP CLEAN. YOU WILL ALSO NEED TO REBOOT.
If you have any questions, I can send you more detailed instructions, however this is pretty easy, it just sounds hard, trust me 🙂

William