Microsoft KB Archive/840644

= &quot;There are no Office Assistant character files present&quot; error message when you start an Office 2000 program for the second time =

Article ID: 840644

Article Last Modified on 4/7/2006

-

APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Office 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Access 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Outlook 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Publisher 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Word 2000 Standard Edition

-





SYMPTOMS
When you start a Microsoft Office 2000 program for the second (or subsequent) time, you may receive the following error message:

The Office Assistant could not be started. Please repair the Assistant by running Office 2000 setup and selecting &quot;Repair Office 2000&quot;.



CAUSE
This problem may occur if all the following conditions are true:
 * You have both Microsoft Office 2000 programs and Microsoft Office 2003 programs installed on the same computer.
 * You start an Office 2003 program before you start an Office 2000 program.
 * The Office Assistant is active in the Office 2003 program.
 * You start and then quit an Office 2000 program.
 * You start an Office 2000 program a second (or subsequent) time.



How to obtain the hotfix
This issue is fixed in the Office 2000 post-Service Pack 3 Hotfix Package that is dated May 13, 2004. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

841530 Office 2000 post-Service Pack 3 hotfix package: May 13, 2004



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the &quot;Applies to&quot; section.



MORE INFORMATION
For additional information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

828956 Running multiple versions of Microsoft Office with Office 2003

837825 &quot;There are no Office Assistant character files present&quot; error message when you start an Office XP program

839132 &quot;There are no Office Assistant character files present&quot; error message when you start an Office 2003 program

Keywords: kbqfe kbhotfixserver kberrmsg kboffice2000presp4fix kbfix kbbug KB840644

-

[mailto:TECHNET@MICROSOFT.COM Send feedback to Microsoft]

© Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.