My laptop doesn't have a CD/DVD drive. I downloaded the relevant Office files from Microsoft back in 2013. I believe I saved those files, as I remember being advised to do so, but I don't know how to distinguish them from the program files.
Office Pro Plus 2013 requires an enterprise license, which is what I mentioned above. Were you working for an enterprise such as a school, or attending one & you were able to get a copy of Office Pro Plus using their enterprise license. It would still have come with an activation code.
If you have no further association with the provider of your Office installation then it's possible your Office installation is invalid. That could explain the updating failure & it not working properly now.
It's also likely that if you do manage to reinstall Office it will fail to activate if you no longer have any association with original enterprise.
I think you have good cause to be nervous about uninstalling and re-installing Office. Have you attempted to contact MS?
I think Ranger4 is on to something. The transform files that the installer is complaining about not being able to find the path to are Office custom install files used by organizations to customize an Office installation. Maybe those transform files were on a network drive that you no longer have access to.
I got the software through the Student Store when I was in grad school. I graduated & left town 3 years ago, so I haven't had access to whatever I might've had access to in quite a while. But I can see how it could be related.
I think I'll set a restore point and attempt an uninstall/reinstall in the next day or so, whenever I'm feeling lucky. If it doesn't work, I'll just go back to the restore point. (I know Office had been working normally a month ago, but unfortunately I'd gotten rid of all previously set restore points in an attempt to free up disk space. I suspect I might've been overzealous in my attempts to satisfy the "low disk space" warnings.)
I posted on Microsoft's forums about my issues, but without much response.
Right that explains everything. The version of Office Pro Plus that you have was licensed under the grad school that you were enrolled in. This is a fairly usual way this is done & it provides you with a free copy of Office while you are at the school using their Enterprise Licence which Microsoft make available to such schools specifically for this purpose. However, once you leave the school your usage of the software becomes illegal.I got the software through the Student Store when I was in grad school. I graduated & left town 3 years ago, so I haven't had access to whatever I might've had access to in quite a while. But I can see how it could be related.
This is why your Office Pro Plus has ceased to work properly & if you uninstall & reinstall it it will very likely not activate.
If you wish to continue using Microsoft Office you will have to either purchase Office 2016 or subscribe to Office 365 which is a subscription version with a monthly or annual fee. All your existing Office spreadsheets, documents & database files should work with the later version of Office.
If you can't get your Office installed and activated again you will have the choice then of purchasing MS Office as Ranger4 explained but you could also try one of the free office suites such as Libre Office or Open Office. They are both open source and can read/write MS Office files.
You could try phoning Microsoft & ask them about your situation & see what they have to say.
Just to update the thread, I went ahead and uninstalled Office. It wouldn't uninstall from Programs & Features, so I had to get the Fix from Microsoft to uninstall it. I thought for sure this process was doomed at this point. Luckily I was able to find the thumb drive where I saved the original downloaded Office files back in 2013. So after the uninstallation, I inserted the thumb drive and copied the file folder for Office 2013 Pro Plus. The reinstallation was a breeze. It took maybe 5 minutes and eventually asked me for my Product Key, which I had. And now everything seems to be working just fine. All the icons were restored, and all documents open normally.
Thanks for all the suggestions!
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