Office XP Language config

Problem with Dell laptop running XP and Office XP: My wife was on a webpage and clicked a link to install Japanese characters (still trying to understand why she did this). Now everytime an Office program is started, Windows Installer pops up and says "Please wait while windows configures MS Office XP". It can't find the file it is looking for and asks for the Office XP disk (which Dell did not include). Cancelling out will allow you to use the program, but the cycle has to be repeated every time. Microsoft's support page has several related articles. I guess Office checks some language registry file every time it starts. There is an article for office 2000 (265194) that explains this problem perfectly. It gives you the option of downloading Office 2000 Resource Kit Tools (orktools) or messing with registry values. Orktools has some type of language utility. But, this article is for office 2000, not office XP. Office XP orktools does not have this language utility and I don't want to mess with registry values because Office XP might be different (and I've never done this before). There is no helpful article for Office XP. Office XP has a Language Settings program in the Office folder. But when I try to run this, Windows installer again asks for the Office xp CD and bombs out when you cancel. Any ideas? Thanks, scott in cleveland

Hello Scott,

Let's see if we can resolve this without messing too much with the registry first. Go to Start|Control Panel|Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options|Regional and Language Options. Make sure the "English (United States) option is selected in the drop-down list on the Regional Options tab.

Go to the Languages tab and make sure both checkboxes are unchecked. Click the Details… button and remove any items from the Installed Services section that are specifically Japanese-related items.

If these items are not present, we'll move to another approach.

Regards,

Ax

Ax - Thanks for the fast response. I didn't mention that I was poking around here. I had gone to Regional & Language Options -> Languages -> Supplimental Language Support, and Unchecked "Install Files for East Asian Languages". This had no effect. I did not look where you described, but it only shows English (United States) under Installed Services. scott

That sounds fine then, have you tried system restore?

Ax - I have not tried system restore, nor do I know how to do it. Can you point me to some info on this? What's the risk of screwing up other stuff? thanks, scott

Scott,

Negligible risk, this will just take your system back to a point prior to the japanese characters being installed. All your documents and such will be left intact, while system and program files and registry settings will be reset. Go to Start|All Programs|Accessories|System Tools|System Restore. Choose "Restore my computer to an earlier time" and click Next. Choose a date in bold that is earlier than the date on which the japanese characters were installed and click Next. Follow the rest of the instructions and your system will restart and reset itself to that date.

More info: Use System Restore to Undo Changes if Problems Occur

Regards,

Ax

Ax - That seems to have fixed it. Thanks for your help. scott

Scott, Glad to hear it! If you ever need anything else, you know where to go. Regards, Ax