Office XP Setup stops responding on Windows Millennium Edition

This article contains information about troubleshooting steps to use when you are installing Microsoft Office programs on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), and Setup seems to stop responding (hang) without apparent errors.

Make Sure That Setup Has Actually Stopped Responding

Setup may appear to stop, but in fact it is continuing slowly. Wait longer (about 20 minutes) before you end Setup. Before concluding that Setup is stopped, check the CD-ROM drive light and hard disk light for activity. Also, press CTRL+ALT+DELETE and check to see whether the Office Setup task appears as "Not Responding" in the Close Programs dialog box.

Verify That the CD-ROM Is Clean and Unscratched

If the problem occurs while you are installing from a CD-ROM, verify that the CD-ROM you are using is clean. You can wipe the CD-ROM with a soft, lint-free cloth. Also verify that there are no large scratches on the CD-ROM. If the CD-ROM is damaged and unreadable, error messages may appear during installation.

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Use the Setup Log Files

When you install Office XP, Setup automatically creates log files in your Temp folder. The log files have names similar to the following.

In this table, <edition> is the edition of Office XP that you are installing. For example, these files may be as follows: The #### characters in the log file names are numbers beginning with 0001. They increment by 1 each time you run Setup. Therefore, the log file with the highest number is the most recent log file.

Verbose logging is enabled by default in Office XP; therefore, the Windows Installer log files contain much information about events that occur during installation. This log file may be requested if you contact Microsoft Technical Support for further troubleshooting.

For additional information about creating and reading Office Setup log files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For additional information about customizing Office Setup log files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Quit All Unnecessary Programs

Before you run Office Setup, quit all unnecessary programs that are running. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type msconfig and then click OK.
3. On the General tab of the System Configuration Utility dialog box, click Selective startup. Clear the following check boxes under Selective Startup:
   
   
   • Load static VxDs
   • Load environment variables
   • Process System.ini file
   • Process Win.ini file
   • Load startup group items
   
   
   NOTE: One or more of these check boxes may not be available, depending on the files that are present on your computer.
4. Click the Startup folder tab so that it is in front, and then click *StateMgr.
5. Click OK and then click Yes when you are prompted to restart your computer.

NOTE: If a beta version of Office XP is installed, it must be uninstalled before you install the final version. Although Setup should prompt you to remove such a pre-release version, the message to remove may not appear.

Check for a Valid Temporary Folder and Delete Temporary Files

There should be at least 50 megabytes (MB) of free space on the hard disk that contains the temporary folder. To check for a temporary folder and delete excess files from that folder, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click System Information.
2. On the Tools menu, click System Configuration Utility.
3. Click the Environment tab, and then look for the TEMP variable.
4. If the TEMP variable is missing, click New. For Variable Name, type TEMP. For Variable Value, type C:\Windows\Temp and then click OK.
   
   If the TEMP variable is present but the path is invalid, click Edit and then type a valid path for the Variable Value. Then click OK.
5. If the TEMP variable is turned off (disabled), select the check box for the TEMP variable.
6. Repeat steps 1 through 5 for the TMP variable.
7. Click OK and then click No if you are prompted to restart your computer.
8. Insert your Windows Me startup disk in your floppy disk drive.
9. Click Start and then click Shut Down. Make sure Restart is selected in the list, and then click OK.
10. After you restart Windows to a command prompt, type the following two lines, and press ENTER after each line:
    c:
    cd\windows\temp
    If the cd\windows\temp folder does not exist, you must create the folder. You can create the temporary folder on your hard disk by typing the following line at the command prompt:
    md c:\windows\temp
11. Delete any temporary files in this folder. Temporary files typically have a .tmp extension. To delete these files, type the following line and then press ENTER:
    del *.tmp

NOTE: Do not delete these files when you are running Windows, because Windows or a Windows-based program may be using one of these files.

In Windows Me, you can delete many unused or temporary files by using the Disk Cleanup utility. For additional information about using this utility, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Turn Off the CD-ROM Drive Cache and DMA

If the problem occurs while your computer is reading from a CD-ROM drive, try turning off the CD-ROM drive cache and Direct Memory Access (DMA). This may make the drive more reliable but can reduce performance. To turn off the CD-ROM drive cache, follow these steps:

1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Select the Performance tab, and then click File System.
3. Select the CD-ROM tab, and then move the Supplemental cache size slider all the way to the left. In the Optimize access pattern for list, select No read-ahead.
4. Select the Troubleshooting tab. Select all of the check boxes except the Disable all 32-bit protected mode disk drivers check box and the Disable System Restore check box.
5. Click OK.
6. Select the Device Manager tab.
7. Click the plus sign (+) to the left of CDROM. Then select the CD-ROM drive that is listed. If more than one CD-ROM drive is listed, select the CD-ROM drive that you are using to run Setup. Click Properties.
8. Select the Settings tab. If the DMA check box is already selected, clear it.
9. Click OK and then click Close. Click Yes to restart your computer.

Check the Hard Disk for Disk Errors and Fragmentation

Use the Scandisk program to check the hard disk for lost clusters and other file allocation table (FAT) errors and to test the hard disk integrity. You can also use the Scandisk program to repair any of these problems. To run Scandisk, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Scandisk.
2. Click the drive that you want to check for errors, and then click Start.

Hard disks that are very fragmented can affect the performance and reliability of Office programs and other tasks in Windows. To resolve this problem, run Disk Defragmenter to defragment the hard disk drive. To run Disk Defragmenter, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter.
2. In the Which drive do you want to defragment list, click the drive that you want to defragment, and then click OK.

Clean Start Windows Me

To disable common startup programs, drivers, and system settings that may conflict with the Office Setup program, clean start (clean boot) Windows.

For additional information about clean starting Windows Me by using the System Configuration utility, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Try to Run Setup from a Flat File

If sufficient space is available on the hard disk, follow these steps to make a copy of the contents of Office XP CD-ROM disk 1:

1. Create a new folder at the root of a hard disk volume, and name it Flatfile, for example, C:\Flatfile.
2. Copy the entire contents of the CD-ROM disk 1 into the Flatfile folder. In Windows Explorer, click the CD-ROM icon. On the Edit menu, click Select All. Drag the selected items on the right side of the Explorer window to the Flatfile folder on the left side.
   
   If any error messages appear during the copy, this may indicate problems with the CD-ROM disk, lens, or drive.

You can use this flat file copy to install Office from a clean start (see the "Clean Start Windows Me" section earlier in this article). If Setup from a flat file fails with a clean start, it is still possible there is a problem with the CD-ROM, because a damaged flat file can be created without generating an error message.

For additional information about hard disk requirements, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Check for a Damaged Swap File

Setup problems may also appear if your Windows swap file is damaged (corrupted). To create a new swap file, restart the computer with the Windows Me startup disk, delete the Win386.swp file in the Windows folder, and then restart the computer. To create a new swap file, follow these steps:

1. Insert the Windows Me startup disk in the floppy disk drive.
2. Click Start and then click Shut Down. Click Restart and then click OK.
3. On the menu, select Minimal Boot, and then press ENTER.
4. At the MS-DOS prompt, switch to the Windows folder by typing the following commands and pressing ENTER after each command
   drive:
   cd drive:\Windows
   where drive is the drive letter that contains the Windows folder. Typically, this is drive C.
   
   NOTE: The swap file exists in the Windows folder if Windows manages virtual memory settings on your computer. If you chose to manage virtual memory settings on the computer, the swap file exists at the root level of the hard disk. To determine whether Windows manages virtual memory settings, right-click My Computer, click Properties, click Performance, and then click Virtual Memory.
5. To delete the swap file, type the following:
   del Win386.swp
6. After you delete the swap file, restart the computer.

Check for Software Updates

Outdated and incompatible software also may cause Setup problems. Check with the manufacturer of the computer for various software updates, such as BIOS updates, OEM Windows updates, and hardware driver updates such as CD-ROM, video, and printer drivers. If you are using third-party partitioning software (for example, EZDrive or Ontrack Disk Manager), verify that you have the most recent versions of these products.

Scan the Computer for Viruses

If a virus is present on your computer and has damaged some files, problems may appear when you run Setup. Scan the hard disk and floppy disks with a virus detector. If the virus detector finds a virus on your computer, remove the virus before you run Office Setup again.

NOTE: Do not run a virus detector terminate-and-stay-resident (TSR) program while you run the Setup program. Run a virus detector before you run Setup, and then turn it off.

Check for Registry Damage

Windows includes a tool called Registry Checker that can scan your registry for damage (corruption) and, if necessary, restore a backup of the registry. Follow these steps to use Registry Checker to scan your registry:

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, proceed to step 3.
   
   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. 
      
   2. Close all programs that are running.
   3. Click Start and then point to Run.
   4. In the Open box, type the following, and then click OK:
      scanreg /fix
   5. When prompted, restart the computer.

For additional information about Registry Checker, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Reinstall Windows in a New Folder

Use this procedure after you try all other troubleshooting methods listed earlier in this article. For testing purposes, you can install Windows into a different folder than your original Windows installation and then install Office to that environment. This is called a "parallel" copy, because it does not entirely remove your original installation of Windows. Instead, Windows is installed alongside your original copy.

If this method of installing Office is successful and you decide to keep the new installation of Windows, you must reinstall all Windows-based programs under the new Windows installation.

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Turn Off Enhanced BIOS Features

Most computers have several enhanced settings that allow the computer to fully use the computer hardware. These high-speed settings can cause the system to become unstable; turning off these features may make the computer more stable. Contact your computer manufacturer for information about how to enter the basic input/output system (BIOS) and change the BIOS settings. You can enter the BIOS on most systems immediately after turning on the power. Usually a keystroke, such as DELETE or F2, is required to enter the BIOS. The following are common features that can interfere with Office programs:

• Memory shadow RAM
• Video shadow RAM
• Internal cache
• External cache
• Built-in virus protection

Newer chipsets may have more advanced features, such as memory wait states, that may cause errors. Most BIOS installation programs have an option to load the BIOS default settings. This option usually turns off all advanced features.

WARNING: Incorrectly altering hardware BIOS settings can cause serious problems that may cause your computer to fail to start or function properly. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that result from the incorrect setting of hardware BIOS options can be solved. Alter the hardware BIOS settings at your own risk.

Check Hardware

If you try the preceding troubleshooting steps and you still receive error messages, it is possible that one or more pieces of your hardware are incompatible with Windows or are damaged. To identify a problem with your computer hardware, contact your computer vendor. For information about how to contact your computer vendor, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
Microsoft provides third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information.