After installing Microsoft Office 2010, every time I initiate a print with PDF Creator, or open PDF Creator, Microsoft Office opens a “preparing to install Microsoft Office” window and acts like it is installing Office, but appears to be in a loop creating multiple instances of “preparing to install Microsoft Office”, never re-installing office. When I hit the cancel button to kill all instances while in this loop, PDF Creator opens in its normal window. I’m running Windows 7 & PDF Creator 1.4.3 (I’m afraid to install PDF creator 1.5 because I’m told the user is forced to install an Antivirus to use it). There was an old post on this pdfforge discussion board recommending a Microsoft solution for my issue at,
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301
but that URL is now updated to describe "How to uninstall or remove Microsoft Office 2010 suites"
Any insights, thoughts or solutions will be appreciated.
Hi,
the description on the technet site is confusing, you will not need to reinstall office or anything, it is simply a tool which fixes broken .msi installations and has helped to ged rid of similar or same problems for many other users. It just has to be run as admin once, afterwards the problem should be fixed.
regards,
Robin
Hi,
I dont know why MS moved this, but here is the link to the utility which can fix broken MSI installations.
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/MSI-cleanup-utility-3889c8db
Also, nobody is ever forced into istalling any additional software with PDFCreator, it is only 1 click during the setup to deselect then bundeled software.
Hello Robin.W,
I will try the utility, & post my result here. Thanks for finding & pointing to it.
Maybe I’ll try newer version 1.5 of PDF Creator first.
Thanks,
J-
Hi Robin.W
Today, I uninstalled my older PDF Creator Version 1.4.3 and replaced it with newest version 1.5.1 (You were right, I just unchecked the AVG AV offering and it did not install anything).
I was able to print to PDF with the newest PDF Creator, and did NOT
experience a Microsoft Office 2010 re-install when logged into Windows 7
as Administrator.
However, when I logged into my non-Administrator account, running PDF
Creator caused the Microsoft Office 2010 re-install to start up again.
Note that previously when I started the old PDF Creator version in either WIN 7 account, the Office re-install would start up.
The link at,…
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/MSI-cleanup-utility-3889c8db
describes how use the microsoft utility to uninstall an application that does not uninstall using the normal WIN7 “Programs & Features” uninstall. Not sure why I need to use their utility to uninstall Office 2010 to fix my problem?
I’m thinking there is something about WIN7 Admin versus non-Admin account that comes into play here. Maybe I should select the WIN7 function that says to always run the PDF Creator executable as Admin (even when in my non-Admin account)? I’ll try that.
Robin,
I agree, those technet site instructions are VERY confusing.
Your response cleared my confusion. Thanks.
I will run the utility and report back, on the chance it helps others too.
J-
Robin,
I installed the MSI Clean Up utility at http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/MSI-cleanup-utility-3889c8db
When I run it, it only offers to Uninstall any or all the apps on my WIN7 PC. The readme file confirms that it uninstalls apps. Apparently the utility is not the same as earlier.
Since my Office 2010 suite is working well, and I am able to successfully use PDF Creator v1.5 in my admin account, without the Office 2010 reinstall running, I’m going to leave things as they are. The only issue I have currently is that Office 2010 reinstall starts up in my non-Admin account when I run PDF Creator (a relatively minor issue). So, I’ll only use PDF Creator when I am logged in as admin. Many thanks for your help.
J-