MS Office 2007 Apps will not load, bad image error

[vangelomaria]

Three days ago I discovered that i could not load MS Word 2007 on my WinXP SP2computer. I kept getting a series of "Bad Image" errors as follows:

(Popup Title) WINWORD.EXE - Bad Image

(Popup text) The application or DLL C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\office12\mso.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette.

And then, after i hit OK:

(New Popup text) "The application or DLL C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\MICROS~1\OFFICE12\mso.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette."

and then:

(new Popup text) "The application or DLL C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12\MSO.DLL is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette."

and finally an error dialogue "The operating system is not presently configured to run this application."

You will notice the little differences in capitalisation and long-short filenames of what seem 3 identical error messages.

The same errors pop up when I try to run any MSOffice 2007 application. Other apps run normally (MS internet Explorer, Opera, Notepad etc).

I have Kasperski Antivirus v. 7 installed and I run 3 complete scans without any nasties showing. I also run Super Antispyware (free version) which found nothing suspicious in my PC. Finally, I run Housecall AV which found some adaware cookies. I deleted all cookies.
Still, the Office apps cannot load. I tried to run the Setup program from the Office CD, which crashed (3 times) while trying to gather install information. What is still worse, is that I cannot remove the Office 2007 installation with the Add/Remove applet; I get a message saying " An error occured while trying to uninstall MSOffice 2007. It may already have been uninstalled." Then i am asked if I would like to have the program removed from the Add/Remove list.

I am at a complete loss. I do not know if the cause is a virus or other malware or it is just a disk integrity problem, since XP had twice run checkdisk at boot time before I started having this problem.

Your help would be very much appreciated. What should I do? Should I backup data files and format the disk or is there a less drastic way? I have many files and photos in the computer and i would hate losing my most recent work (older stuff has been backed up).

Please help!

 

[kimsland]

Use the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility to remove the broken Office install

 

[DelJo63]

Your might try to use the Office REPAIR install from the CD

if that fails, Uninstall MS Office, reboot and then reinstall.

 

[vangelomaria]

Kimsland, jobeard

Thank you for your advice. I will try both suggestions (repair first, uninstall/reinstall if repair does not work).

Would you by any chance know if an uninstall/reinstall uses up one of the 3 MS Office 2007 licences ?

Thanks again for your time. I will post to let you know of the outcome.

 

[DelJo63]

on Repair, it keeps what it has.

On reinstall, it will reuse the same key it had before.

 

[adu123]

Did you follow the New Preliminary Removal Instructions ?

 

[vangelomaria]

Did you follow the New Preliminary Removal Instructions ?

Not yet.
I am not sure this is caused by malware.
I have ran most of the programs in the PRI post, anyway, and there was no indication of virus or spyware.

I will try my luck first with the unistaller. If this doesn't work, i will let you know.

Thanks

 

[vangelomaria]

Kimsland, jobeard

Thank you for your advice. I will try both suggestions (repair first, uninstall/reinstall if repair does not work).

Would you by any chance know if an uninstall/reinstall uses up one of the 3 MS Office 2007 licences ?

Thanks again for your time. I will post to let you know of the outcome.

I could not use the repair utility on the Office CD, because I could not load any Office app in the first place. I looked it up in Microsoft Support and it seems that you can only run the repair utility from within the MS application.

Next I downloaded and installed the Windows Cleanup Utility.
I uninstalled all MS Office 2007 programs. It went like a breeze.
I restarted. Installed MS Office 2007 again from the original CD. I was asked for the product key during installation. After that, the suite worked normally. I was not asked/reminded to activate again, so I suppose jobeard was right about the licence.

I will monitor the system for any unusual behaviour.

Thanks again for your time and support. I would probably have to format my disk if it weren't for your advice.

 

[kimsland]

Thanks for the update :grinthumb