This may not sound very scientific, but after hundreds of wasted hours of
searching and experimenting, here is what I did and it works !
1. Uninstall all Microsoft Office 2007, 03 etc versions.,
2. Uninstall all MS Office file convertors, support software for desktop
gadgets, downloaded patches, etc
3. Go to hard drive and find the Microsoft Office folder and delete it.
4. Since I did not want to monkey with the registry I went to PC World and
downloaded CCleaner and Regclean and installed it.
5. Run both programs multiple times till all registry errors are corrected.
This could take many reboots as after every reboot you will see new errors
when you run the softwares.
6. Alternate would be to open registry and delete all references of office,
risky !
7. Installed Office 03 fresh by finding the setup file on the cd using
windows explorer, right click and run it as administrator and downloaded
patches and everything is doing great now.