Well, do I have a fix for you. I spent about four hours today trying to get Office 365 and/or Office 2016 Preview installed. I kept getting a strange error:
So, after reading and searching and reading and searching… to no avail… I pieced together what was happening.
A couple of questions for you to see if you fit the criteria for the fix, first.
- Have you moved your Program Files (x86) and/or Program Files folders off your primary drive? (Because you have an SSD, most likely, to save space.)
- Do you have those folders symlinked to the C: drive?
If you answered yes to both… than I am here to help you.
The reason you are getting the error is because the new Office installers use ClickToRun technology to install. This method does not allow you to change the install path for Office. And because Office uses hidden folders not in the Program Files or Program Files (x86) folders the install just won’t work properly without “assistance”.
So, without further adieu; the solution:
Make sure you have uninstalled any botched install of Office. You may get errors on the uninstall. Use this MS Fixit to do a repair uninstall. Restart.
- Open Search or Run and type regedit
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion
- Change all the following keys to your drive where you want it installed: CommonFilesDir; CommonFilesDir (x86); CommonW642Dir; ProgramFilesDir; ProgramFilesDir (x86); ProgramW6432Dir
- Restart
- Download the ClickToRun Office 365/2016 installer
- Install
- Open regedit again and revert all your changes back to C:\
- Restart
- Open Control Panel and Select Programs and Features
- Right Click Office 365 and select Change
- Repair Install
- Done!
There you go! Now, Office should work and you can get back to whatever you were doing that made you have to install Office (unfortunately, I assume).