Hi, everyone.

I posted the following message in December and received no
replies. The situation hasn't changed. Can anyone at all please
help me?

My Encarta installation is in an endless loop. Here are the
details:

To start with, I had the following Microsoft products installed:
Office XP Professional with Access and Publisher
OneNote
Encarta Reference DVD 2004
Encarta 98 (left-over pieces after an apparently incomplete
uninstall years ago)

I then ordered an academic copy of Office Standard 2003
from Software Outlet. I also accepted a special offer to buy
Encarta Standard 2005.

While I was waiting for delivery, I downloaded and installed the
Office Standard 2003 trial (over the top of my Pro installation).

When the CDs arrived, I discovered that Encarta was on Disk 3 of
Works Suite 2005. (I received only disk 3.)

I first activated Office, then attempted to install Encarta. (I
did not first remove the 2004 version, because I was hopeful that
I might be able to use them in parallel.) After a long wait, I
was told that Encarta installation had completed and was asked if
I wanted to run the program. I said yes, at which point a dialog
box popped up saying, "Please wait while Windows configures
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2005."

After another long wait, I was asked whether I wanted to restart
my computer. I found that whether I answered yes or no, the same
"wait while Windows configures Encarta" dialog popped up again.
This was repeated--over and over and over.... I had to use Task
Manager to kill Encarta and several msiexec.exe instances.

Here's where the challenge began. Following are the things I've
tried to get this to work (over a period of several hours!).

1. I uninstalled Encarta and started over, with the same result.

2. I installed Office from the CD (over the trial) to see if it
would make a difference. Same result.

3. After researching the problem in this newsgroup, I uninstalled
Encarta, ran an Office repair, and tried installing again. Same
thing.

4. Following another suggestion here, I uninstalled both Encarta
AND Office, then tried to install Encarta. Same thing.

5. I did a search at support.microsoft.com and found KB 312070. I
followed the instructions in the article, and for good measure, I
also uninstalled the old Encarta and manually removed all
significant Encarta items in the registry. I tried to reinstall
(after clean booting, as instructed). Same thing again.

At this point, I decided that I needed to have Office back, so I
reinstalled Office Standard 2003. Access XP and Publisher XP are
also still installed. I have not yet installed the Office 2003
service packs and upgrades. [Note: I have since installed these.]

Where do I go from here? I could really use some help!

Thanks in advance....

--
Keith