Microsoft office encountered an error during setup. [yuck, just yuck].
I purchased a new ASUS desktop (Windows 10 Home) with a primary SSD drive and secondary regular hard-drive. I ran the Office 2013 Professional Plus install and it said it 'Microsoft office encountered an error during setup.'.
I spent multiple days, and many hours, trying many solutions. I contacted MS Support they remoted into my PC and did everything I had done and could not install this as well. They suggested I go with higher up support but I wanted to quit wasting my time.
I don't actually know what combination of actions resulted in it finally installing. But if any of these steps helps someone else, I feel I am a better citizen in life. The Task Scheduler deletion of the Office folder was the final step before the install finally worked. I executed the following steps over many days.
1. Ran the MS Office fix that completely un-installs all versions to the MS Office. The PC came installed with 2016, but I had to use 2013. I ran this uninstall many times after trying many fixes.
2. I found a problem with the install complaining about the OSE not being able to run as a standalone [stated somewhere in the install log file found in %temp%]. A post had mentioned copying the OSE.exe file either from the install disk or from another working PC. I copied it from my working PC, but I am pretty sure it was the same version and the one in the install files.
Copied the file to: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Source Engine\OSE.EXE
I also copied the regedit entry from my working PC to the new PC and installed the regedit entry so that it would run as a service.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ose]
"DisplayName"="Office Source Engine"
"Description"="Saves installation files used for updates and repairs and is required for the downloading of Setup updates and Watson error reports."
"Type"=dword:00000010
"Start"=dword:00000003
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"=hex(2):22,00,43,00,3a,00,5c,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,\ 6d,00,20,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,20,00,28,00,78,00,38,00,36,00,29,\ 00,5c,00,43,00,6f,00,6d,00,6d,00,6f,00,6e,00,20,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,\ 73,00,5c,00,4d,00,69,00,63,00,72,00,6f,00,73,00,6f,00,66,00,74,00,20,00,53,\ 00,68,00,61,00,72,00,65,00,64,00,5c,00,53,00,6f,00,75,00,72,00,63,00,65,00,\ 20,00,45,00,6e,00,67,00,69,00,6e,00,65,00,5c,00,4f,00,53,00,45,00,2e,00,45,\ 00,58,00,45,00,22,00,00,00
"ObjectName"="LocalSystem"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ose\Security]
"Security"=hex:01,00,14,80,8c,00,00,00,98,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,30,00,00,00,02,\ 00,1c,00,01,00,00,00,02,80,14,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,\ 00,00,02,00,5c,00,04,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,9d,01,00,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,\ 05,04,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,fd,01,02,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00,\ 00,00,18,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,20,02,00,00,00,\ 00,14,00,8d,01,02,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,06,00,00,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,\ 00,05,12,00,00,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00
I restarted the computer, saw the Office Source Engine was an installed service, and started the service so it would be running when I ran the install.
I am not sure if this was necessary or not. But throwing it out there because it worked for someone else...In the end, after the sucessful install of the 64-bit Office, I see I have an 'Office 64 Source Engine' service installed so I am guessing the install tries to install this whole Source Engine itself.
3. Copied the ISO files from the mounted image to a regular folder on the D drive. [I had originally copied the files from the 32-bit ISO that was provided to me by my client but eventually used the ISO that I downloaded myself from the Microsoft site and that was the copy that finally worked which was the 64-bit version]
4. Unregistered and re-registered the Windows installer. Start run msiexec /unregister and then msiexec /regserver
5. Go to c:/windows/tasks and delete the contents of the folder, if you have a lot of tasks then take a backup first.
6. [THIS IS THE LAST STEP THAT I DID JUST BEFORE SUCCESSFULLY INSTALLED] Open up the Task Scheduler, go to Microsoft Folder, Delete the Office folder. https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1872788-office-2013-install-error-on-windows-10-anniversary-update
7. Restarted the PC in a Clean Boot.
8. Ran the install again.
I truly feel like I deserve a trophy or something. I seriously spent over 16 hours working on this problem.
UPDATE: I had to un-install the 64-bit due to needing the 32-bit for Access. I was worried about un-installing and re-installing due to all the issues I encountered. I ran the FixIt that deleted the previous install, deleted the Task Scheduler - Office folder, restarted (not even a clean boot), and then re-installed. And it ran in minutes.
I did not do anything with the Office Source Engine, no clean boot, nothing. So there you go.
