How to remove Access/Powerpoint from Laptop???

[DaveR]

Please...any ideas?

My wife has a laptop and is visiting 3000 miles away. She is out of diskspace and we want to remove Access and Powerpoint from her laptop. She is using Win95 and Office 97. The problem is that I told her on the phone to go to add/remove programs. When she got to ACCESS (or Powerpoint) and tells it to uninstall, it asks for her distribution disk!! WHY? These programs ARE there as she can start them. I thought it only asks for the CD (which is here...3000 miles away)if it thinks you want to install a component...not remove it! I had her navigate in explorer to the Office folder but Access and powerpoint are showing as 3MB files (EXE's). How can she remove their components as I believe they are VERY large. She just wants to keep Word and Excel.

TIA

 

[jmorrell]

Unfortunately, Office runs the setup program that's on the CD for both installing AND removing components. I don't know of any other way to remove individual components unless the laptop has an uninstall program like CleanSweep or another similar program.

 

[PAT31850]

Take my word for it ,don't just delete any Office 97 programs. You should run the remove program. I have done it the hard way and its no fun. Without the Cd you are better off to compress some files or work around it till you can use the cd. The other way is to send her the setup file and eventually about 25 or more files that she will have to load to make a setup on her machine. If you just delete files you will have problems getting everything removed and will get error messages.

 

[Henry Kuo]

I don't think you can do it without the CD. At least for me if I want to remove something i will put in the CD, and the remove options pops up.

 

[PAT31850]

You can do it but you really need another machine with it loaded on it and with a CD rom drive and I had to use a floppy. I did my sister in laws laptop that did't have a Cd drive.You have to first copy the setup onto your machine then run it and as it says can't find a file you locate the file ,copy it to where it said it can't find it. Keep doing this until the setup will run completly. I think I did about 25+ files. Took me about 2 hours to build a setup .A lot easier with a CD and drive.

 

[Bglad]

And I think it verifies the serial number on the cd with the serial of the installed software, so you can't borrow someone elses cd. Not positive of this but pretty sure.

 

[DaveR]

Thanks all. As I said, I DO have the cd...just 3000 Miles away. Anyway, for now, I resolved her space issue by forcing her VM settings (swp file) from 128MB to 64 MB. Bought time for now. When she gets home, I may nuke it all and install Win98SE and O2K with word/excel only. Now she is not even on OSR2 release of Win95 and has a 1GB hard drive. Still 1 GB should be enough for win98, o2k, and some internet tools and Quicken and quickbooks.

 

[PAT31850]

Be careful on nukeing the drive and starting over. Lap tops are not the same as PCs . My sis in law has an IBM thinkpad and it is a real pistol just to go from 95 to 98. Has about 10 or 12 files to download that you have to load before you upgrade or load 98. Have not been able to get one file yet . We wound up just staying with 95 for now. Other brands might not be so bad . Safe bet would be read the manual or check with support and upgrade for your brand.

 

[Mday]

you did tell her to delete the temp files, and stuff, right?

 

[DaveR]

Well, it is a Fujitsu Monte Carlo. The web site has some drivers it says we need. That is why I had not done it before. At least wanted to go to OSR2 for better fat32 disk space.

Also, ALL is working now so I will wait 'til she gets home before I get rid of all the temp files, etc!

P.S. I know what a pain the laptops are!!

 

[PowerJoe]

Bglad: the serial number is not on the CD - just on the license booklet, CD cover or wherever.

-PJ