Posted: January 3, 2009/Under: Operating Systems/By: My Digital Life Editorial Team

Sometimes, Microsoft Office Suite 2007 unable or cannot be uninstalled by using Add or Remove Programs (or Programs and Features) in Control Panel. There could be multiple causes and reasons that cause user cannot uninstall Office 2007, mainly due to corrupted, invalid or missing critical registry keys, files or components. When official uninstallation fails, the following error messages may appear.

Cannot fine setup.ini file.

Setup cannot continue because a required file is either corrupted or not available. Run setup again from the original source disc or download location.

Setup failed. Rolling back changes.

When the 2007 Microsoft Office system cannot be uninstalled, you may be unable to install or reinstall the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

To fix the error, user will have to uninstall the Microsoft Office 2007 manually by following the procedures listed below. For those who prefer automatic uninstall, there is a Microsoft Office 2007 Complete Clean Registry Removal Tool available.

Step 1: Remove any remaining Windows Installer packages of the 2007 Microsoft Office system

  1. Click Start, click Run, type installer, and then click OK to open %windir%\Installer folder.
  2. On the View menu, click Details. (In Windows Vista, press the ALT key to display the menu bar).
  3. On the View menu, click Choose Details.
  4. Click to select the Subject check box, type 340 in the Width of selected column (in pixels) box, and then click OK.
  5. For Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, on the View menu, point to Arrange icons by, and then click Subject.

    For Windows Vista, on the View menu, point to Sort By, and then click Subject. Click Allow if User Account Control dialog prompts for confirmation.

  6. For each .msi file where the subject is Microsoft Office Product_Name 2007, right-click the .msi file, and then click Uninstall.

    Note: Product_Name is a placeholder for the name of the 2007 Microsoft Office product.

Step 2: Stop the Office Source Engine service

  1. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, click Start, click Run, type services.msc in the Open box, and then click OK.

    For Windows Vista, click Start and then Start Search, type services.msc, and then press ENTER.

  2. In the Services window, determine whether the Office Source Engine service is running. If this service is running, right-click Office Source Engine, and then click Stop.
  3. Close the Services window.

Step 3: Remove any remaining 2007 Microsoft Office installation folders

  1. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, click Start, click Run, type %CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared in the Open box, and then click OK.

    For Windows Vista, click Start and then Start Search, type %CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared, and then press ENTER.

  2. If the following folders are present, delete them:
    • Office12
    • Source Engine
  3. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, click Start, click Run, type %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office, and then click OK.

    For computer that is running a 64-bit version of Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Office, and then press ENTER.

    For Windows Vista, click Start and then Start Search, type %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office, and then press ENTER.

  4. On the root folder of each hard disk drive, locate and then open the MSOCache folder. If you cannot see the MSOCache folder, follow these steps:
    1. Open Windows Explorer, and then on the Tools menu click Folder Options.
    2. Click the View tab.
    3. In the Advanced settings pane under Hidden files and folders, click Show hidden files and folders.
    4. Click to clear the Hide protected operating system files check box, and then click OK.
  5. Open the drive_letter:\MSOCache\All Users folder, and then delete every folder that has the following text in the folder name:

    0FF1CE)-

    The text contains a zero and a one for the letters “O” and “I.”

Step 4: Remove any remaining 2007 Microsoft Office installation files

  1. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, click Start, click Run, type %appdata%\microsoft\templates, and then click OK.

    For Windows Vista, click Start and then Start Search, type %appdata%\microsoft\templates, and then press ENTER.

  2. Delete the following files:
    • Normal.dotm
    • Normalemail.dotm
  3. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, click Start, click Run, type %appdata%\microsoft\document building blocks\Language_ID, and then click OK.

    For Windows Vista, click Start and then Start Search, type %appdata%\microsoft\document building blocks\Language ID, and then press ENTER.

    Language_ID is a placeholder for the four-digit number that represents the language of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. For example, if you use the English version of the 2007 Microsoft Office system, the Language_ID value is 1033. If the Language_ID is not known, type %appdata%\microsoft\document building blocks, and then open the subfolder in that location. If the folder does not exist, go to step 6.

  4. Delete the Building blocks.dotx file.
  5. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, click Start, click Run, type %temp%, and then click OK.

    For Windows Vista, click Start and then Start Search, type %temp%, and then press ENTER.

  6. On the Edit menu, click Select All.
  7. On the File menu, click Delete.
  8. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, click Start, click Run, type %AllUsersprofile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\Data, and then click OK.

    For Windows Vista, click Start and then Start Search, type %AllUsersprofile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\Data, and then press ENTER.

  9. Delete only the Opa12.dat file.

Step 5: Remove the registry subkeys of the 2007 Microsoft Office system

  1. Locate and then delete the registry subkeys of the 2007 Microsoft Office system if they are present. To do this, follow these steps:
    • For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

      For Windows Vista, click Start and then Start Search, type regedit, and then click OK.

    • Click the following subkey:

      HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0

    • On the File menu, click Export, type DeletedKey01, and then click Save.
    • On the Edit menu, click Delete, and then click Yes to confirm the deletion.
    • For each registry subkey in the following list, repeat steps 1a through 1d. Change the name of the exported key by one for each subkey, i.e. type DeletedKey02 for the second key, type DeletedKey03 for the third key, and so on.

      In the following registry keys, the asterisk character (*) represents one or more characters in the subkey name.

      32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows:

      • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Delivery\SourceEngine\Downloads\*0FF1CE}-*
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*0FF1CE*
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UpgradeCodes\*F01FEC
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\*F01FEC
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ose
      • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\*F01FEC
      • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\*F01FEC
      • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\UpgradeCodes\*F01FEC
      • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Win32Assemblies\*Office12*

      64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows:

      • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\12.0
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Delivery\SourceEngine\Downloads\*0FF1CE}-*
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*0FF1CE*
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UpgradeCodes\*F01FEC
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\*F01FEC
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ose
      • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\*F01FEC
      • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\*F01FEC
      • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\UpgradeCodes\*F01FEC
      • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Win32Assemblies\*Office12*
  2. Locate the following registry subkey:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

    For 64-bit version of Windows, locate the following registry subkey instead:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

  3. On the File menu, click Export, type UninstallKey01, and then click Save.
  4. Under the Uninstall subkey that you located in step 1, click each subkey, and then determine whether the subkey has the following value assigned to it:
    • Name: UninstallString
    • Data: file_name path\Office Setup Controller\Setup.exe path

    file_name is a placeholder for the name of an installation program, and path is a placeholder for the file path.

  5. If the subkey contains the name and the data that are described in step 4, click Delete on the Edit menu. Otherwise, go to step 4.
  6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you locate and then delete every subkey that matches the name and the data that are described in step 4.
  7. Close Registry Editor.

Step 6: Restart the computer

Restart the computer. If the uninstall was successful, you are finished and can now reinstall the 2007 Microsoft Office system if you want.

The guide is provided by Microsoft KB928218.

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