You receive an "Error 1402. Could not open key" error message when you run Office 2000 Setup

When you try to install Microsoft Office 2000, an error message similar to the following appears: where <Keyname> is the name of a key that Office Setup is attempting to write to the Windows registry.

This problem may occur when the following conditions are true:

• You are running Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me).
• You have turned on User Profiles.
• There is a problem with the active profile.

To work around this problem, follow these steps.

Method 1: Check for registry damage

Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) and Microsoft Windows 98 include a tool called Registry Checker that can scan your registry for damage (corruption), and, if necessary, restore a backup of the registry. Follow the steps for your operating system to use Registry Checker to scan your registry:

For Windows Me:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click System Information.
2. On the Tools menu, click Registry Checker. You may receive the following error message:
   Windows encountered an error accessing the system registry. Windows will restart the computer and repair the system registry for you.
   If you receive this error message, restart your computer.
   
   If you do not receive the error message, you can choose to compact and repair damage to the internal data structure of the system registry by following these steps:
   1. Close all programs that are running.
   2. Click Start and point to Run. In the Open box, type the following and then click OK:
      scanreg /fix
   3. Click Yes to restart the computer.
3. Run Office Setup.

If the problem continues, try method 2 or method 3.

For Windows 98:

1. Restart the computer, press and hold down CTRL until the Windows 98 Startup menu appears, and then choose Command prompt only.
2. At the command prompt, type scanreg /fix and then press ENTER.
3. After the Registry Checker tool finishes repairing the registry, press ENTER.
4. At the command prompt, type scanreg /opt and then press ENTER.
   
   NOTE: The /opt command-line switch causes the Registry Checker tool to optimize the registry by removing unused space.
5. Restart the computer.
6. Run Office Setup.

If the problem continues, try method 2 or method 3.

Method 2: Run Setup under a different profile

If the profile under which you are logged on is damaged (corrupted), you may be able to run Setup under a different user profile. If you log on under a different profile and you are able to install Office, you may need to delete and recreate the problematic profile. Otherwise, you may encounter the same problem when you try to install Office when you are logged back on under that profile.

For more information about removing an existing user profile, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

NOTE: If you have profiles turned on and a per-user Start menu, each user who has an existing profile on Windows 95 or Windows 98 must run Setup for Office. The only users who do not have to run Setup are those who do not have an existing profile on the computer; when they log on for the first time, the default user profile is copied into their profile. This default user profile includes all of the registry information and shortcuts necessary to start Office programs.

For more information about installing Office 2000 with user profiles turned on, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: If this method does not resolve the problem, please try the steps outlined in method 3.

Method 3: turn off user profiles before running Setup

1. On the Start menu, point to Settings, and click Control Panel. Double-click the Passwords control panel.
2. Click the User Profiles tab. Click All users of this computer use the same preferences and desktop settings.
3. Click OK. Restart the computer if prompted to do so.
4. Install Office 2000. If the installation of Office is successful, you can turn on user profiles again.

NOTE: If you turn on user profiles again, you may encounter problems running the Office programs. For information about the additional steps that you must follow before you run Office 2000 programs after you turn on user profiles, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

For more articles about how to troubleshoot specific errors in Office Setup: For more articles with general information about how to troubleshoot Office errors: