How to install MS Office 2003

Minimum System Requirements for Microsoft Office 2003 Professional
Processor: 233 MHz or higher; Pentium III recommended.
Operating System: Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 or later, or Windows XP or later.
RAM: 64 MB (minimum); 128 MB (recommended)
Hard drive space: 450 MB.

Note: Hard disk space usage varies depending on the configuration; Custom installation choices may require more or less hard disk space; selection of the ‘Complete’ installation choice will require more hard disk space. The above listed requirement is for the default configuration.

Additional information on the system requirements for Microsoft Office 2003 Professional and specific items and services can be found at the Microsoft help and support website.

The Installation Process
Insert the Office 2003 Installation CD into your CD drive. After a few seconds of copying installation files to your computer, the installation will begin. If the installation does not begin automatically, open ‘My Computer’, then open the OFFICE11 CD, and double-click the SETUPPRO.EXE.
You will be prompted for the Office 2003 product key.

Type the product key from the back of the CD. Use only five characters per field box, and ensure that there are a total of 25 characters. When you are finished, click ‘Next’. If you are unable to locate the product key then click on the windows help icon on the product key page to open the Microsoft help topic page.

The next screen of the Office 2003 Installer will prompt you for your user name, initials, and organisation. Click ‘Next’ once this information is entered correctly.

The next window displays the End-User License Agreement (EULA). Click the checkbox at the bottom corresponding to ‘I accept the terms in the License Agreement’. It is recommended that you go through this once. Then click ‘Next’.

The next window displays the installation options for Office 2003. If you just want to install everything that Office provides, click the selection button corresponding to ‘Complete’ under the ‘or choose an install type’ option. Then click ‘Next’ at the bottom of the window. The other options are as follows:

Typical Install: As the name implies, this option installs the programs and options most commonly used by the masses. Complete Install: Installs every program and every option that your edition has to offer onto the hard drive.

Minimal Install: This is a bare-bones installation that is a viable choice if you’re low on hard drive space.

Custom Install: Here’s where you’ll find maximum configurability. If you have a good idea of how you’ll be using Office and its individual applications, this selection will let you tailor the installation more tightly to your specific needs. If you don’t do a complete install, later on, you can always install any component that you want. Of course, you will need the Office CD to do this. With the large hard drives of today, if you have the storage to spare, we recommend the ‘Complete Install’ option, particularly if you will use the software to produce work under time constraints. Limited or partial installations of Office can create problems at the most inopportune moments. You may call up what you would expect to be a routine feature in Word, for example, and discover that the feature was never installed in the first place. When that happens, the program will run an installation routine that calls for the installation CD to be placed in the original CD drive that was used during installation.

If you don’t have the CD handy, it’s easy enough to cancel the routine and continue work without that feature, but as you may expect, this doesn’t always work smoothly. You’ve probably seen
Word, or another Office component, crash—more than once—when the program tried to install a requested feature and the original installation CD wasn’t available.

Once you’re done choosing what type of install to do, the ‘Begin Installation’ window will appear. Click on the ‘Install’ button at the bottom of the window. This will start the process of installing Microsoft Office 2003 on your computer. After starting installation, a progress bar will be displayed showing that Microsoft Office 2003 is currently being installed on your computer. The time to complete the install will vary based on how fast your computer is.

The installer will inform you when the setup is complete. You will have the option to check for Microsoft Office updates and delete your installation files. Ensure that ‘Check the Web for updates and additional downloads’ is checked, and that ‘Delete installation files’ is unchecked. This is to ensure that if Office later finds a file missing, or if a file goes corrupt, it can recover it from these installation files. Click the ‘Finish’ button.

The installer will close. Internet Explorer should appear and take you to the Microsoft support website for installing office updates (http://office.microsoft.com/officeupdate/). If the Web browser doesn’t appear, open Internet Explorer and go to the Microsoft support web site yourself. Click on the ‘Check for Updates’ link.

You will be prompted to install and run the ‘Office Update Installation Engine’. This engine will allow Microsoft to scan and update Office 2003 via the Web. Click ‘Yes’ to install it.

The windows support site will display any updates necessary. If there are any updates listed, follow the on-screen instructions to download and install them. Otherwise, close the Internet Explorer.