# Office "Not installed" for Guest Account?



## Makoto0729 (Dec 4, 2008)

Okay, I have an HP Pavilion DV4 laptop that came with Office Home and Student 2007 preinstalled. I've had it a good year or so now.

My aunt uses the guest account on my laptop from time to time, since she has no computer of her own, and has used Office to make a resume and a few other files on the guest account in the past. In other words, it used to work.

However, for some reason, now Office continually gives an error and will not even boot on the Guest account. It works on my own personal account, but not on the Guest.

It boots the installer, says "Preparing to install...", attempts to configure it, the Word or other window will appear in the background but inaccessible, under a popup saying it's configuring and attempting to install, and eventually gives an error saying it's not properly installed on the account, despite again, having worked before. It still works fine on my own account as well.

I've attempted System Restoring to my oldest restore point, but that didn't help anything. Can anyone help with this?


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## RSpecianjr (Jan 20, 2010)

Hey Makoto0729,

What operating system do you have?

I imagine its an issue with permissions. If a program is installed in an administrator account you can give access to other accounts in the administrative account. If access is not granted, I believe they get the message you are talking about... Though it has been a long time since I have worked with installation issues.

Perhaps someone else knows?

HTH,

Robert D. Specian Jr.


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## Makoto0729 (Dec 4, 2008)

I have Vista, Service Pack 2.

I don't believe there's a problem with the permissions, since I haven't edited them in any way myself, but it's possible it may have been edited by a Windows Update or something...

Oh, I forgot to mention: I've also tried to use the installer's built-in repair feature, but despite that, there was no change on the guest account.


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## djaburg (May 15, 2008)

If you were to create an account for her OTHER than the guest account, would it work? I know that most of the windows versions "GUEST" account was something with limited functionality. It doesn't hurt to try adding that additional account and I'd be very surprised if that didn't resolve the issue.


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## Makoto0729 (Dec 4, 2008)

I was reluctant to do that, since what I wanted was to restore it to the guest account anyway, but I attempted it. Somehow, however, when I attempted to open something in Word to test it, I got the same exact problem. It gave all the exact same issues as the Guest account.

The account was a standard user when it ran into the problems. Out of curiosity, I took the new account and changed its type to an administrator, and suddenly everything worked for it.

That means somehow Office is either: a) Somehow only working for Administrators, or b) Not working for at least a certain level under Administrator.

My question now is, how exactly does that happen in the first place, and how do I fix it? I consider it a serious problem that only administrators can use Office...


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## RSpecianjr (Jan 20, 2010)

Hey Makoto0729,

It is just a permissions issue. You should be able to fix it when you are logged into any of the administrative accounts. I assume the folder that office is installed in only has admin privelages, if you right click the folder click properties then security, you should be able to adjust the permissions. That should get you back up and running.

Again, this has to be done in an admin account. If that doesn't work... im not sure what else it could be... just double check and make sure its installed in the 'All Users' folder.

HTH,

Robert D. Specian Jr.


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## djaburg (May 15, 2008)

"Limited" accounts (basically anything other than administrative) will always have issues installing software. Your best bet would be to up the permissions to administrative for the additional account until the software has been configured correctly and then you can lower the account type accordingly. MS has done this so that kids, for example, can't install goofy software on Mom and Dad's computer and screw something up.


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