Microsoft Office Click-to-Run 2010 (Protected) (Q:)

That's nice and all, but I have a long standing use of drive letter Q for other purposes.  It was already mapped before this drive Q was created, but then this came in and completely screwed up my mapping.  So, yes, "don't worry about it" is not a solution for me.

Agreed, in our office we've had our letters O-U mapped as specific drives via the login script for all of our users for years. I'd be annoyed, but content if it defaulted to Q, and could be assigned an alternate unused letter, but to hijack the Q mapping universally without regard for existing system configurations creates user confusion, or requires company-wide restructure of drive-mappings to accommodate Microsoft's lust for the letter Q. This is not acceptable.

Interesting.

What do you mean you installed the "Starter pack"? Everything I've read from MS says that they only distribute the Office Starter installation files to computer manufacturers for OEM installation. I for one, would really like to get my hands on a Starter installation file... The only way that I have seen available to the general public to "re-install" Office starter has been to use the refresh partition to re-install the factory default installation of Windows, Starter and crapware.

Yes, the default Office Starter uses Q: for it's virtual drive. That is a "safe" assumption on their part because it is "normally" only an OEM installation on machines which would rarely use more than up to G: or H: drive assignments (a couple of HD, CD, DVD, BlueRay, Floppy(?)). I am surprised that the installation simply didn't **** out when it found Q: occupied.

The Office installers usually default all file associations to the most recently installed application. I expect that you'll find, even after uninstalling starter, the file associations will not be re-assigned back to 2003. Do an in-place repair of Office 2003 to reset the file associations. If that doesn't work, you can do the apps individually:

File will not open on double click - File Association

Here are a whole bunch of ways of fixing "file association" (that's "windows speak") problems. Just work your way though ones you have not tried yet until you find one that works:

Note: if you have the Click-To-Run installation of Office Starter and you have “normal” installation of other version of Office you have to decide which version is going to have file association. Only one can be invoked by double clicking on file. Normally that would not be Starter.

Try repairing your Office installation, for example via Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel.

Repair or remove Office 2010 - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/repair-or-remove-office-2010-HA010357402.aspx?CTT=1

Re-register the application

There are several different ways you can reset the proper file associations. Word itself provides a way to do it. Open a command prompt window and, at the command line, enter the following:

winword /r

Nothing seems to happen when you press Enter, but Word will reregister itself back in Windows. In the process, it resets the file associations for the files it uses, such as DOC and DOT files. You can close the command prompt window and double-click on a document; Word should start right up.

Alternate Re-register the application

Close the app. Open the Run Window: <WIN> R, use the following command (Modify the Path to match your specific installation):

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\winword.exe" /unregserver

The quotes are necessary, but you may need to change the path so it reflects the location of the winword.exe file on your system. (You can use Windows’ Search tool to locate the path to the winword.exe file.) The /unregserver switch “unhooks” all the references to Word in the Windows Registry.

You should then, immediately, use the following command:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\winword.exe" /regserver

This command causes Word to rewrite all its Registry keys and to reassociate itself with document and template files. Now you can double-click a document file and see if Windows starts Word and opens the document.

I installed the Starter pack and it screwed up my existing 2010 Excel plus took my assigned personal drive letter on the corporate network.  Apparently, since my Lenovo Thinkpad already uses the Q: drive assignment, MS CTR took my R: drive.

Why doesn't MS ask for a drive letter assignment instead of thinking it knows better than I do?  Oh, never mind, MS is smarter than everyone else.  BTW, wasn't that Enron's downfall?

I installed the Starter so I could open a Word 2010 document sent to me.  Stupid me, I thought that MS would have been smart enough to have the installer check if I already had Excel 2010 installed before screwing it up!

I had to reassign most of my Excel default program extensions back to Excel, plus a few Word extensions that I want Word 2003 to continue to use.

I've run the uninstall and I'm hoping that when I boot up tomorrow morning Excel 2010 & Word 2003 will still work.  I'm not rebooting right now, since I have real work to get done today.

MS's lack of consideration and poor communication skills has cost me and my company a good 4 hours of my time.  I wonder how long MS would stay in business if everyone who's lost work hours was able to bill them for those lost hours?