Q: My computer came compete with Windows 2000 Home Edition and Microsoft Ofiice 2003 pre-installed. Now my Microsoft Access appears to be corrupt. Is there any way of reinstalling Microsoft Office or Access without a full disc restore?
A: If the system was pre-installed you should have an Office recovery CD, or have been offered the chance to create one when the system was first used. If you don’t have this disc things become a little trickier but all is not necessarily lost.
When Office 2003 is installed a copy of the setup files is made to a hidden Local Installation Source (LIS) folder on your hard drive. This may allow you to repair Office components without resort to the CD. However, it uses a fair bit of space so is often removed.
If you’re having trouble accessing the files you can download the Microsoft LISTool from. This allows you to enable or disable the LIS or move it to a different disk. Whether or not any of this is successful rather depends on how the PC was originally set up.
If an Office program crashes you may be able to use the Application Recovery mode to recover the open files. Click on Start, All Programs and select Microsoft Office, Open the Microsoft Office Tools folder and choose Microsoft Office Application Recovery.
Running Office Application Recovery from the Start menu can help recover files from a crashed program
Originally featured in PCU119
