# Trouble installing Office 2013



## Rainman199 (Aug 14, 2014)

When I try to install my Office 2013 Home and Student on my windows 8.1 laptop I get the error message;

"Background installation ran into a problem. 
Please make sure you're connected to the internet or try connecting to a different network. 
We'll automatically resume installation as soon as possible, and you can keep working once we do. "

I have tried re-installing it using Fix It, I have tried re-installing it after a clean boot and I have tried an internet repair but nothing has worked.
What else can I try? I can't see my college notes without this.


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

You mention previous data. Did you or do you have another copy of Office installed?


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## Rainman199 (Aug 14, 2014)

I had a trial for 365 installed but I've uninstalled that copy.


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## Wizmo (Apr 3, 2011)

I had this same issue with a client's system on a laptop. Eventually it took an MS customer service agent about 6 hours to resolve it remotely. Still don't know what she eventually did as I was away from the laptop doing other maintenance work when the process completed. All I know is the MS representative said it was a "common problem" with the new Office edition and Win8.X when an Office 365 trial is involved. It sure was frustrating at the time, but since the outside professional intervention it has worked flawlessly.

__________________
In this world there are too many politicians and far too much politics.

Poly - meaning many
tics - meaning blood-sucking parasites


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## Rainman199 (Aug 14, 2014)

Wizmo said:


> I had this same issue with a client's system on a laptop. Eventually it took an MS customer service agent about 6 hours to resolve it remotely. Still don't know what she eventually did as I was away from the laptop doing other maintenance work when the process completed. All I know is the MS representative said it was a "common problem" with the new Office edition and Win8.X when an Office 365 trial is involved. It sure was frustrating at the time, but since the outside professional intervention it has worked flawlessly.


This seems to be the best option, I'll give it a shot tomorrow.
What kind of information did you have to give the agent to let her fix it though?


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Depending on how you uninstalled 365 you might have remnants. Go to this site: How to uninstall Office 2013 or Office 365 and scroll down to: Manual steps for uninstalling Office 2013 or Office 365. Expand the parts you need and follow the steps.


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## Rainman199 (Aug 14, 2014)

Corday said:


> Depending on how you uninstalled 365 you might have remnants. Go to this site: How to uninstall Office 2013 or Office 365 and scroll down to: Manual steps for uninstalling Office 2013 or Office 365. Expand the parts you need and follow the steps.


Okay thanks I've done that, now just restart my computer and try another re-install?


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## Wizmo (Apr 3, 2011)

Rainman199 said:


> This seems to be the best option, I'll give it a shot tomorrow.
> What kind of information did you have to give the agent to let her fix it though?


The remote assistance agent access required creating and logging into the Microsoft Account, and verification of the validity of the MS Office package license key. I understand this account requirement is now unnecessary for domain connected PC's, but at the time the laptop was NOT enrolled in the Domain. 

There were other issues with upgrading the laptop to V8.1 to even permit domain access! That was a whole other kettle of (rotten) fish that took days to resolve.

As a result of all the issues at the time we took the step of downgrading all 76 PC's to WIN7 PRO, since these issues were not relevant with that version and the media was supplied to do the downgrade with the new PC's. There was also substantial push-back from the users who mostly hated V8.X and threatened open revolt in several departments!!

This one laptop is now the sole remaining V8.X machine in the entire office, since the domain issues were eventually resolved and the user was willing to deal with the learning curve as long as his Word & Excel was now working!

We were converting a whole organization over from WIN-XP in March of this year, and Outlook Web Access also is "broken" in Win7/8 due to an IE incompatibility with Exchange Server. In short we faced a lot of teething pains with the changeover. I sincerely hope your experience goes more smoothly!

__________________
In this world there are too many politicians and far too much politics.

Poly - meaning many
tics - meaning blood-sucking parasites


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## Rainman199 (Aug 14, 2014)

Wizmo said:


> The remote assistance agent access required creating and logging into the Microsoft Account, and verification of the validity of the MS Office package license key. I understand this account requirement is now unnecessary for domain connected PC's, but at the time the laptop was NOT enrolled in the Domain.
> 
> There were other issues with upgrading the laptop to V8.1 to even permit domain access! That was a whole other kettle of (rotten) fish that took days to resolve.
> 
> ...


Jesus, you must have needed a hell of a lot of patience.
Going from 8 to 8.1 brought me enough problems as it is, this is just the icing on the cake.
Thanks for your and Corday's help though, you've been much more helpful than microsoft's customer support, hopefully I can resolve this issue soon.


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## Wizmo (Apr 3, 2011)

Rainman199 said:


> Jesus, you must have needed a hell of a lot of patience.


Patience and determination are part of any SysAdmin's job description. Between a minority of clueless users and pressure to keep costs down, well you get the idea. I think I have a few less hairs, and the remainder are a bit more silver!

Change is often very disruptive and painful. The changeover took 3 weeks and several long weekends. The systems are mostly in heavy use 14-16 hours a day, so my efforts had to take place in the off hours, in addition to my regular domain supervision activities. I had three user additions and one deletion during the period that complicated matters a bit.

Fortunately a major server drive array controller failure waited until 2 weeks after the transition to hit me!  

Two key words - REDUNDANCY & BACKUPS!

Good luck, and let us know when you have a satisfactory resolution. 

__________________
In this world there are too many politicians and far too much politics.

Poly - meaning many
tics - meaning blood-sucking parasites


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