Comments on: Solving Failed Microsoft Office Updates

By: Olav

Olav — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:39:53 +0000

In my case it was some of the Windows Update DLL files that for some reason was no longer correct installed in the registry. I don’t know why this happened, I had suspicions before to certain applications that I installed, but today it happened again on a clean machine with only Windows and Office 2003 plus a few other hardware related driver installs.
Here is how i solved that problem:

Open the command window

Go to the c:\windows\system32 directore

For each of the dll files in c:\windows\system32

do the command
regsvr32 xxx
where xxx represents each of the files with a name starting with “wu” and also has the filetype “dll”.

Do the update again.

Olav

By: rbealo

rbealo — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:23:18 +0000

Avi,

I have been trying off and on for months to solve this problem, MS was no help, even the Knowledge base. Your tip worked great. Thanks! Now I am wondering why MS has not made this info more readily available. Bob

By: Leon

Leon — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:30:17 +0000

Worked great, thx.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:53:18 +0000

@Benjamin: Me too. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before. I have no idea how that service got disabled.

@Jon: Long term solution would be to buy a new Office 2003 disc and reinstall it. I’d be billing the cost of that purchase to your little siblings if I were you. I’d also install software to be able to lock your registry so that only you can change it. There is no way the kids should be allowed to mess around in there. A near term solution to get your papers done would be to download OpenOffice. It’s free, MS Office compatible and easy to use. Try it and you might not go back to MS.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:03:36 +0000

LISTool also gave me an error, so… I went to into the folder (C:\MSOCache\All Users\) and removed all 3 folders that were there. When I ran Windows Update, ALL, not just one, but ALL 9 office based updates worked fine. I got the folder information from the LISTool help files!
Everything is OK without having to do MAJOR software actions.
Thanks for the post, it was extremely helpful.

Cheers and good luck!

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By: jemprice

jemprice — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:53:27 +0000

Thanks – google pointed me to your blog and the VERY frustrating problem about failed Office updates has been easily and quickly sorted! Thanks for the info on the OSE.EXE file.
Cheers y’all!

By: Jeanne

Jeanne — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 19:51:01 +0000

I finally found a fix that worked for me (things above did not). Tried Listool but got error message 0×80070002 when I tried to install. Using that error code I found this on Microsoft and it worked!!!

CAUSE
This problem occurs when some files in the update are missing, even though the update is downloaded and extracted successfully.

RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, remove the download directory, and then visit the update locations again. To do this, follow these steps:1. Stop the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps:a. Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK.
b. Right-click the Automatic Updates service, and then click Stop.
c. Minimize the Services snap-in.

2. Rename the SoftwareDistribution directory. To do this, follow these steps: a. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
b. Type cd %windir%, and then press ENTER.
c. Type ren SoftwareDistribution SDTemp, and then press ENTER
d. Type exit, and then press ENTER .

Note When you remove the %windir%\softwaredistribution folder, the history list is erased from the “Review your Updates” section of the Windows Update Web site. This action will not affect the currently installed updates on your computer. Subsequent updates will appear in the history list.
3. Start the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps:a. Maximize the Services snap-in.
b. Right-click the Automatic Updates service, and then click Start.
c. Close the Services snap-in window.

4. Visit the Windows Update Web site, the Microsoft Update Web site, or the WSUS server again, and then download an update.
5. If you still receive the same errors, verify that you have correctly performed steps 1 through 3.
6. If you still cannot install the update, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
906602 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906602/) How to troubleshoot Windows Update, Microsoft Update, and Windows Server Update Services installation issues

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:18:41 +0000

LISTool worked great for me, but in manner completely opposite your suggestion. I downloaded and installed LISTool, then instead of deleting and disabling, I enabled on MS-Office 2003, tried installing updates, and it worked! Thanks for pointing out LISTool.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 22:52:20 +0000

my disc is gone and i have office 2003. office source engine is missing. i read and put it on automatic because i tried manually starting it up. from what i can tell the whole things path file is gone and has been deleted by one of my annoying little brothers and sister. the disc was broken by them and i have no idea what to do. i’ve got stuff i have to type up so can anyone tell me a solution.