Windows 8: Office 2010 install hangs

I have a new HP dv7 Intel laptop that came with Win8.

I bought an online copy of Office 2010 Home and Student. The setup program consistently hung at about 3/4 complete. No error message. Tried running as admin, no change.

Contacted the seller company (Digisoft) and they gave me the link to download the product directly from MS, as they had sent me a product key. I tried that with the same results, except now the setup program hangs at about halfway (judging from the progress bar). I tried running it in XP SP3 compatibility mode, but same problem.

When setup hangs (and I leave the computer for about a half hour, just to make sure it's not just a slow install), I stop the bootstrap setup and (5) msie install processes via Task Manager. I checked the Control Panel Remove Programs app to ensure there is no MS Office anything installed anywhere. None of that seems to matter. The results are always the same - program hangs at same point, with not error message or anything.

Frustrating. I know people had problems with Office 2010 and early releases of Win8, but I expect those should have been fixed, so I'm not sure what's going on and why this can't install. Any help/suggestions are very much appreciated.

-- garyZ

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Answer

garyzim

It is fixed! I noticed in one of the other threads on this forum about the same problem an MS rep suggested a clean boot, which I did not try, but I noticed this addition/aside to his instructions:

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ensure that the Print Spooler service is stopped before installing Office 2010 in clean boot mode.

Click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Run > type services.msc > hit OK. In the Serviceswindow, scroll down and right click on Print Spooler > click Stop.

Note: Ensure to start the Print Spooler service after troubleshooting.

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That seemed like an easy thing to try, so I stopped the service and tried installing again. It worked, but note that there were a few places the install paused for a bit, and if you're not ready for it you might think it's hung again.

Furthermore, after the install progress bar had completed, and I was breathlessly waiting for the install to finish, it ended with a message that "there was an error". Uh oh. I checked my start menu, and Office programs appeared there, so I tried starting Word. It started, and asked me to activate (because I had unchecked the automatic activation option at the start of the install to minimize any extra "stuff").

When I tried to activate over the internet, the program informed me that I had already used the key far too many times. I have a single-computer version of Home and Student. Of course there were too many uses of the key - I must have tried to install this darned program 20 times on my laptop, trying to work around the install problem. I hit the Back button and used the telephone activation service instead. It's all automated, requires saying a LOT of numbers and entering a LOT of numbers, but when I finished reading the first set of numbers, the robot just asked me how many machines I had installed the product on. I said one, and it gave me the response numbers to enter and I was done.

I hope this information is useful to others on this list having the same problem, and I hope simply turning off the print spooler before the install will work for you too.

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Windows 8: Office 2010 install hangs

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