Microsoft Office 2007 Patch Error on Windows Vista

[Duncan McC]

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I am trying to install some Office updates on Windows Vista Ultimate. I am getting a patch error when I am trying to perform a update. I am using Microsoft Office 2007. I got notification for some updates. Those were related to outlook. The download was proper but when I tried to install them there is a patch error on the screen. Is anyone getting the same error.

[Javalr]

Try to avoid the update for sometime. There can be problem with it. It happens a number of time wrong updates are distributed on the web due to which you get that problem. It is necessary that you must perform a clean update later on. You can do that manually also. Wrong updates can cause failure of your entire office suite.

[terminal51]

To resolve the "the detection failed this can be due to a corrupted installation database" error that I was getting when trying to reinstall office 2007 sp1, or install kb950113, kb950114 (or even kb 946691) on an XP sp3 pc with office 2007 installed, I simply renamed this regkey: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products \00002109030000000000000000F01FEC\Patches

I chose the "patches" key because i was having problems with applying patches - for the record, we had the same issue with sql 2005 server trying to install sql sp2 on a server that already had sp1 installed - same thing fixed this also. You need to find the patches key in the same "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\" location as the product you are having issues with - 00002109030000000000000000F01FEC just happaens to be the string that relates to Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, the version i use - your version may have a slightly different string - look in each product string for the product name value till you find the office one you have installed, then delete or rename the patches key.

[TJude]

Patrick - When I do that, it does nothing and I am back to choosing what to uninstall. My problems all started when I applied an upgrade to ACT! 2008. I don't have this specific key, but many similar. Why did you choose this particular key?

[Mojomatt]

I didn't have any success with any of the previous suggestions but did have success with exctracting the contents of the file (in my case the contents contained an .MSP file) and then applied the patch and it was successful.

[dlauber]

I ran into the same problem on one of our computers trying to install the Office 2007 Service Pack 2 issued April 28, 2009. The catch is that you've got to go into the registry at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\ and rename the patch key to patch_old on every entry for an Office 2007 application - Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, Expression Web, etc. The number of entries you'll have to change depends on which Office 2007 programs are installed. The entries to change include those for Microsoft Office Shared Setup Metadata MUI (English) 2007; Microsoft Software Update for Web Folders (English) 2007; Microsoft Office Excel MUI (English) 2007; etc. -- everything involved in Office 2007.

I would strongly suggest that before making these edits, that you export the registry to your desktop as a safety valve and run a system restore from the Control Panel.After the install works, be sure to reboot. I suspect that you can then delete the patch_old keys, but I am not certain (and after losing so much time to finding this solution, I'm not ready to be a guinea pig right now). Good luck. I think this should work for you too.

What you're going to find are a bunch of very lengthy keys in the left hand window of RegEdit with names like "00002109610090400000000000F01FEC". The 14 or so keys for various components of Microsoft Office 2007 will be at the beginning of the long list of keys for all software products that have been installed on your computer. If you simply highlight a key on the left hand side, you'll see a list of different types of values including Product Name which will tell you what application the key is for. You want all of them that have Microsoft Office 2007 in the name. In the left hand window, click on the + sign in the box to expand the listing. That's when you'll see a key that is called "Patches" (not to be confused with the dog Patches in the very old tear-jerking folk song). Highlight "Patches" and hit Function Key 2 (or right click and select "Rename") to rename the key to "Patches_old" (do not put in the quotation marks). Do this for the 14 or so keys for Office 2007 components. They'll be listed consecutively.

After you have installed Service Pack 2 (and be sure to disconnect from the Internet and turn off your Internet security and other running programs), you should reboot. Then go back to the keys you visited. Expand them one by one. Generally speaking, a new "Patches" key was created when you installed Service Pack 2. But a few of these do not generate a new "Patches" key. For those, I think it is prudent to rename the "Patches_old" key back to "Patches". That should do it for you. If you're still confused (and messing in the registry can confuse anybody), let me know and I'll try to walk you through it. If necessary you can call me. I'm in the Central time zone, USA.

Given that you ran into trouble 7 months ago, I would strongly recommend that you completely uninstall Office 2007 and then, after rebooting, reinstall it from scratch. I had to do this with two of our computers last year and it cleared up a lot of problems. Before you uninstall you might want to jot down any customizations you made because they will be lost. Also I would strongly recommend that you use Revo Uninstaller for all uninstalls, especially this one. Revo Uninstaller first uses the application's own uninstaller, but then it also searches for left over registry entries and leftover files to remove. Very, very helpful. One caution when using Revo: When the application's uninstall finishes, it will likely ask if you want to reboot now. Answer "No" and let Revo continue its process. Once it's all done, then you can reboot. And when reinstalling Office 2007, be sure to disconnect from the Internet and turn off your Internet Security application and just about everything else that is running. That will give you much safer and smoother reinstall. Reboot, open Word and activate if necessary. Then install the Service Packs before doing anything else. That should get you going okay. (I've built about 60 Windows computers, so I know just enough be to dangerous.)

Sounds like you've got a real mess on your computer thanks to Microsoft. Microsoft Office 2007 and its predecessors tend to be very "sensitive" (for lack of a better word) to corruption and to other versions of Office being installed. Now if you are unable to uninstall Office 2007 using the Control Panel's add/remove programs, Revo Uninstaller is unlikely to save you since it runs the Office 2007 unintaller first. Installing Publisher 2002 could cause even more problems (I'm not certain, but I do know that Office 2007 does not peacefully co-exist with earlier versions of Office).

I'm going to suggest one way to proceed, but be aware that it might not work depending on how messed up your computer is.

First, though, make sure you clean up your hard drive by deleting temporary files and cleaning your registry. I've found that RegistryBooster 2009 is the most reliable utility for cleaning registries. It's not free, but it works better than any of the freeware I've seen. It's available from for $29.95 (regularly $39.95). It's more than paid for itself.

I cannot guarantee that the following will work for you. You would be very prudent to back up all of your data to flash drives or CDs or DVDs before trying this or anything else major.

You might want to try the following which usually works:

(1) Try to reinstall Office 2007 over itself.
(2) If that works, you should be able to uninstall Office 2007 -- use Revo Uninstaller to do the uninstall since it will get rid of the registry entries and files that the Office 2007 uninstaller leaves behind.
(3) After rebooting, reinstall Office 2007, reboot.
(4) Make sure Office 2007 is working. Activate it.
(5) Install the Office 2007 Service Packs.

With any luck this will work for you. It has worked for me and others. But nobody can guarantee it will work on everybody's Windows computer since Windows configurations differ so much from computer to computer.

[p-harris]

is the patch key supposed to be named patch key? I'm not finding anything named patch key

I found the keys, and when I click on one of them, it does expand and in the right hand side of the window, all I get is a list of other things, which I will be very careful not to irritate. For instance the first one says
Default
AdvertiseFlags
Assigment
etc...

On done it says

• Language
• PackageCode
• ProductName

By the way, I remember that song! "Patches" so renaming the file to patches_old would probably be appropriate, Patches the dog would be really old in dog years by now. Thanks for the chuckle!

By the way, this patch thing might not be my problem. I started having trouble with my Office 2007 Pro Teacher/Student edition about 7 months after buying it. I keep trying to get help via Microsoft and that seems to go nowhere. I can update more later when I've had a decent break. I'm in the DFW area in Central time too.

Thanks for such a speedy initial reply!

Haha! Then you know more than me and anyone else in my family. DO you think Revo will uninstall it for me? I couldn't uninstall last week when I gave up and decided to try that option. I wanted to use Publisher because I had some files that I needed in Publisher that i created last year so I reinstalled 2002 and this helped Word just a little. After getting the pop up windows tell me it's initializing installation and preparing files for set up I can click cancel and the Word pops up.

Also, do you think I have a chance of it actually installing? I haven't been able to even use the disc to try and reinstall it before. I thought the disc was bad, maybe it's just some sort of corruption on my pc that's bad.

Thanks so much!

Thank you so much, I will proceed with extreme caution, or if all else fails take to my computer guy. It's just difficult for me to work on my son's laptop. I really hate using another computer other than the one I'm used to using. I already started some of the clean up process and I ran error check last night when I went to bed. I have no idea if it found or fixed anything. If I can figure out where the log is that might make me feel better. I'll let you know if this works for me. It might be a day or 2 before I get up my nerve to do all this. You have been so much more helpful than Microsoft. I'm still trying to submit a question to them and it's not going through. The form processor keeps telling me to try again later.

[jezzer]

I'm too young to remember the dog Patches in the old folk song (!), but I felt I had to take the time to thank dlauber for his/her contributions in this thread.

I had been struggling for days to install any Office 2007 updates (both regular ones and SP2) since doing an upgrade from Office 2003 to Office 2007 Enterprise. I'm not sure whether the problems arose from the upgrade or from the fact that a version of OneNote 2007 had already been installed on my laptop. In any event, I was getting the "the detection failed this can be due to a corrupted installation database" error and had no success with any of the remedies suggested elsewhere such as inserting a writable CD/DVD, running Office diagnostics, using the Office Repair feature, etc.

However, the procedure of renaming the patch keys described by dlauber worked a treat. So, many thanks for taking the time to post that advice!

[lagunasrfr]

I too am having this problem. I activated a preinstalled version of Office 2007 online. I am getting the "corrupted database" message when I try to install SP2.

I tried renaming the "patches" key in the registry to no avail. Question: should I have rebooted after the rename?

When I try to run "Setup" from the Office disk (which I received after activation) I get "running setup" and then a silent failure. I know the disk is good because I can read all of the files on it.

I can trace the .msi entries in the registry to files in C:\msocache, so it appears all of the installation files are on my hard drive.

I have used "run as administrator" and that doesn't help.

I want to avoid having to do the manual uninstall and reinstall of Office at all costs, because I don't know if I can get it reinstalled.

I've researched this problem on the internet and haven't come up with any other solutions. I might add that I also have Office 2003 installed and don't want to uninstall/reinstall that either.

I did the manual uninstall of Office 2007: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928218/en-us
It was easy, but tedious. Suggest you print out the instructions and make notes on them as you follow and execute.

No problem when I reinstalled. I even left Office 2003 on my system and everything works fine.

[vms511]

Mate, you are a legend. This worked like a charm for me. Many thanks.

[Seekers7]

dlauber is the BEAST! I've been trying since 15 Aug 08 to install the dumb Security update for Ppt 2007...It finally worked. I got all 3 Office installs to be successful but not the Vista one...I'm going to go back and try the fix again...also, what does it mean if a patch installs successfully and then either comes up on a later update as unsuccessful or keeps installing over a 2 week span?

[cgos]

dlauber's fix worked for me also. Kudo's!

[FRANCO1873]

Dlauber You are a GOD as your fix worked for me and was brilliantly explained and easy to follow. thank you sooo much

However imy spell check is still not working for Microsoft Word and its killing me and my reports lol

[JAMES_911]

Originally Posted by FRANCO1873

However imy spell check is still not working for Microsoft Word and its killing me and my reports lol

If you want to verify Spelling and Grammar Checkers are on,

1. First of all from the Tools menu, select Options.
2. On the Options dialog, click the Spelling and Grammar tab.
3. Check the boxes for Check spelling as you type and Check grammar as you type.
4. Click OK.