Article ID: 217648
Article Last Modified on 1/24/2007
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Windows 98 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Windows 95
- Microsoft Office 2000 Premium Edition
- Microsoft Office 2000 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Office 2000 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Office 2000 Small Business Edition
- Microsoft Office 2000 Developer Edition
- Microsoft Access 2000 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition
- Microsoft FrontPage 2000 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Outlook 2000 Standard Edition
- Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Word 2000 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q217648
SYMPTOMS
WARNING:This information is preliminary and has not been confirmed or tested by Microsoft. Use only with discretion. When you run Setup for Office, the following error message may appear:
You may receive this error for more than one shortcut that Setup is trying to create.
After Setup is finished, none of the shortcuts on the Programs menu work. However, the Office programs start if you double-click the executables (for example, Excel.exe) in the \Microsoft Office\Office folder.
CAUSE
This error message may appear if either of the following is true:
- You are installing Office into a non-default folder location that has a very long total path length. -or-
- The Windows file associations are corrupted.
WORKAROUND
If you installed Office to a non-default folder location (with a long total path), please do the following:
- Uninstall Office using Add/Remove Programs.
- Re-run Office Setup.
- Choose the default path or choose a path shorter than your original path.
If you installed Office to the default folder location, then your Windows file associations may need to be repaired. To do this:
- Uninstall Office using Add/Remove Programs.
- Click Start, point to Find, and click Files or Folders.
- In the Named box, type "Shell.inf" (without the quotation marks), and then click Find Now.
- Right-click the Shell.inf file, and click Install.
- Wait about 1 minute (the time varies depending on the speed of your hard disk), and then click Start, click Shutdown, click Restart, and then click OK.
- If the Shell.inf file is not found, click Start, Run, and then type the following:
rundll setupx.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 c:\windows\inf\shell.inf
- Re-run Office Setup.
For more information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
145810 Install Command Unavailable on .inf File Context Menu
STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.
MORE INFORMATION
An additional symptom of the problem with file associations is that if you right-click My Computer, Open and Explore are missing from the shortcut menu.
REFERENCES
For more articles about how to troubleshoot specific errors in Office Setup:
For more articles with general information about how to troubleshoot Office errors:
Additional query words: OFF2000
Keywords: kbbug kberrmsg kbsetup KB217648