Microsoft Office Outlook Repeatedly Installs

[Professor Lone Ranger]

My desktop had a Trial version of Office 2007 before I installed Office Enterprise. Un-installation of the trial was not a success and ever since Outlook and other Office programmes produce a message that windows set-up controller installer has encountered a problem during install. Reviewing the log files is suggested but how do I do that? After three error messages it then works correctly but if I close Outlook in error the whole process is repeated. Microsoft offered no help on this even though I was within the warranty period. It is an irritating waste of time and happens with any of the office programmes. Can it be sorted out, short of re-installing the OS? It is XP professional but I cannot find the disc I bought about 5 or six years ago. I also have an HP Office-jet 635 that still prints but the excellent scanner no longer operates. The programme it seems is missing. I have the original disk for that but the DVD does not activate it Any tips or pointers would be welcome. One of my CD drives has stopped working and I have no sound on the computer. I know some would say 'buy yourself another computer' but I believe in conservation not consumption.
____________________
Just because they tell us they are right it does not mean they are.

[MarkJ]

Normally when something says it has logged the events you are either told where they are, or are in a fairly obvious place, like C:\program Files\office\error.log

Another place to look is the event log: Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer
You may have specific MS Office sections to look in, or they might just be under Application. look in all sections at the time the install failed and see what's there, as there may be something in another section, like Security.

The first thing I would do is uninstall all office products and start again. if this doesn't work I'd uninstall it all again and sift through the registry deleting references to Microsoft Office, Office11 etc, but if you're never done this before i don't recommend it. If you do, make a backup of the registry first.

With the computer as a whole, the hardware should be fine, but with all those problems it does sound like you'd be best off re-installing Windows XP. If you bought the PC from a supplier you may have the key on a sticker on the case somewhere, then you just need to download (:shh:) the XP CD and away you go. Backup everything first.

[Professor Lone Ranger]

Thank you. My last attempt seems to have failed.
____________________
Just because they tell us they are right it does not mean they are.