'Fatal Error During Installation' appears when I try to open Office 20

Fishsticks13 · 12 Aug 2015

Hello everyone,

I've been using all Office 2010 features (Word, Excel etc.) absolutely fine for years on my computer that runs Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, but suddenly from yesterday I've been unable to open anything - not any document saved on my desktop or through any shortcuts or folders. I haven't installed any recent programs or made any changes to my computer (that I know of).

When I try to open something in Office 2010 a Windows Installer box appears saying 'preparing to install' and then 'configuring Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010.' An error box then appears saying 'Fatal error during installation' and that's it.

I've checked my programs and I've got Office 2010 and Office Professional Plus 2010, but there's only the option to Change the Professional Plus version in the Uninstall or Change Program panel. However when I click Change on the Professional Plus version there's no option to repair it.

Should I try and uninstall Office 2010 and then reinstall it?

I'm sorry if this is a dumb question and if it's been answered elsewhere - I'm just worried that I won't ever be able to open my Word documents again!

Thank you very much for any help you can give me!

Ranger4 · 12 Aug 2015

Hi Fishsticks13, welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

Do you have both Office 2010 & Office 2010 Pro Plus installed. If that is so why do you need 2 versions of Office.

Have a look at this website for a possible fix. It does recommend uninstalling & reinstalling Office.

Office Programs won't reload, "Fatal error during - Microsoft Community

Fishsticks13 · 13 Aug 2015

Hi Ranger4,

Thank you for your reply and welcome.
I'm not sure why I have two versions of Office installed! I'm going to try and uninstall one first and then maybe both, and then hopefully reinstall one version.

Ranger4 · 13 Aug 2015

Yes that would be the best approach. Decide which one you want & uninstall the other. You may have to uninstall both & then reinstall the one you decide on.

If you have some Documents & Spreadsheets that have been set up in say Office 2010, & you decide to only have Office Pro Plus installed they may not open as they will be looking for Office 2010. You may have set up the new path for them & use the Open With option. You can usually find that by Right Clicking on the item & select Properties & then where is says Opens With select Change & point it to the necessary program.

Another point to keep in mind is that Office Pro Plus is usually supplied by companies for employees to use & it is usually supplied to the employee free of charge. So if you are no longer employed there, it would be better to use your Office 2010 standard version. Of course Office 2010 standard does not have MS Access, so if you need MS Access you may have to keep that in mind.