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Office Update Office Update is like Windows Update

Updating Office 2000

February 5, 2004: Updating Office 2000 Small Business Edition SR-1 via www.officeupdate.com and the latest version of the Office Update ActiveX control (it was downloaded today).  The web page that shows the available updates starts with those for Office XP. Way down the page are updates for Office 2000. Even after all this time and all these years, Office Update is not smart enough to detect which version of Office is installed on the computer. This was under Windows 2000 SP4.  

September 2003: While applying Office 2000 service pack 3 to a copy of Office 2000 at SP1, the UI at the beginning said it was SP3. Then during the apply phase, a good few minutes, it said it was SP1. Then at the very end it said it was SP3.  

Windows service packs are cumulative and thus have no pre-reqs. That is you can apply SP4 to a machine with no service packs or to one with SP1 or SP2 or SP3. Office 97 service packs built on each other. That is, to apply SP2 you had to first install SP1. Office 2000 is neither of these. You can install Service Pack 3 on top of SP1 or SP2. But you can not install Service Pack 3 on top of an installation that had no previous service packs. Argh.  

Environment: Windows XP Home Edition SP1. Word, Excel and PowerPoint installed and at SP3. No other Office 2000 applications are installed. Office Update is from August 29, 2003. 

Running Office Update showed there were five missing patches. One of the patches was to Outlook. It wanted to install an Outlook patch even though Outlook was not installed. Another patch was to Access, also not installed. I installed the three patches for the products that existed, rebooted and ran Office Update again. It still wanted to apply the patches to the missing programs. Just for fun, I told it to apply the patch to Access and it did. Happily and successfully. This is disgraceful. 

Service packs are big files. So it goes, lot of bugs. Not however, Service Pack 1 for Office 2000. It consists only of an installer program. This installer program evaluates your computer and then determines what fixes to apply. The download will be 26 to 40 MB according to Microsoft. You can not therefore install SP1 off-line. If you need to install it to multiple machines, you need to download it multiple times. This behavior is different than service packs for Windows and different from Service Pack 3 for Office 2000. 

FYI: Woody's Office Watch newsletter from February 26, 2003 has instructions for updating Office 2000 and Office XP. 

Office Update

You run Office Update from www.officeupdate.com. Well, not quite. There is no "Check for updates" function on this page. You have to select the Downloads link on the left. 

The real link is office.microsoft.com/officeupdate/default.aspx Not too easy to remember. 

Office Update requires the original Office CD. Windows Update does not. 

Other Gripers and FYIs 

Woody's Office Watch newsletter, September 22, 2003. Quoting: "Office Update doesn't work worth squat." The scenario: installed XP pro clean. Applied SP1. Applied all later fixes. Installed Office XP. Applied two service packs to it. Ran Office Update and it crashed. Repeatedly. 

Rant: What's Wrong With Office Update? Woody Leonhard in WOODY's OFFICE WATCH September 10, 2003. Among Woody's gripes: There shouldn't be a separate Office Update, it tells him that he needs fixes to software that is not installed on his computer and  the installation of a service pack fails for no obvious reason. Quoting: "Windows Update sends me into fits of rage. Office Update leaves me bouncing off the walls. We get patches that clobber machines. Patches that don't solve the problem. Patches recommended for software that doesn't exist. Patches for patches. Why can't Microsoft get this stupid stuff right?" 

FYI: Why Service Packs, Updates, and Security Patches May Require the Office XP CD-ROM

FYI: About Office Update from Microsoft