Removal Wizard

Removing Components from Previous Versions of Office

The Microsoft Removal Wizard and the Office 2000 Setup program use the same logic and the same text file to remove unneeded or obsolete files and settings from users’ computers.

The Removal Wizard consists of the following files:

Offcln9.opc   Text file that specifies files, registry, and INI file settings, and shortcuts associated with a particular language version of Office to be removed.

Oclean9.dll   Carries out instructions in Offcln9.opc to clean up the user’s hard disk.

Offcln9.exe   Provides the user interface that lets you run the wizard as a stand-alone utility.

You can customize the OPC file so that only the components that you specify are removed — including non-Office applications.

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Running the removal process during Office Setup

When users install Office 2000, the Office Setup program detects unneeded files, settings, and shortcuts from previously installed versions of Office and removes them. Because the removal function of Setup runs as part of the Windows installer package, Setup runs with administrative permissions. That way, Setup can remove prior versions of Office even for users who don’t have administrative permissions.

Setup removes files according to instructions contained in one or more OPC files and can remove files for as many languages as you have OPC files. For example, a user might have a French version of Microsoft Word and an English version of Microsoft Excel. If the user has OPC files for both French and English, both the French and English components are removed.

Note   If you have an OPC file that instructs Setup to keep some Office files, while another OPC instructs Setup to remove those files, Setup removes the files.

The removal function of Setup detects the following components of prior versions of Office and Office-related products:

• Microsoft Office 4.x, Office 95, and Office 97
• Microsoft Team Manager 97
• Microsoft Outlook 97 and Outlook 98 (does not include Outlook Express)
• Microsoft FrontPage® 1.1, FrontPage 97, FrontPage 98
• Microsoft Publisher 2.0, Publisher 95, Publisher 97, and Publisher 98
• Microsoft Project 4.0, Project 95, Project 97, Project 98

Note   Setup recognizes components at the application level. Therefore, the removal process detects and removes stand-alone versions of applications such as Word and Excel, as well as shared components such as Office Binder and Equation Editor.

Setup also detects the following as candidates for removal:

• Incompletely installed or uninstalled components that leave unusable files on the hard disk
• Files that begin with the tilde (~) character

Finally, Setup detects and removes temporary files, which are defined as files found in any of the following folders:

• Windows temporary folder (Windows\Temp or Windows\Tmp)
• Folders identified by the MS-DOS® environment variable %TEMP% or %TMP%
• MS-DOS temporary folder (drive:\Temp or drive:\Tmp); Setup searches every drive on the computer.

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Running the Removal Wizard as a stand-alone utility

After Office Setup removes files and settings from previously installed versions of Office or Office components, other unneeded files might remain on users’ computers. For example, font files and dynamic-link library (DLL) files might not be removed. You can run the Removal Wizard as a stand-alone utility to remove all Office-related files from users’ computers.

Note   Setup does not remove user files from the user’s hard disk.

Situations in which it makes sense to run the Removal Wizard as a stand-alone utility include the following:

• Before you upgrade to Office 2000, to clean up all existing Office-related files.
• When you upgrade gradually. For example, if you upgrade to Word 2000 before upgrading to the rest of Office 2000, you can remove previously installed versions of Word only.
• When upgrading to Office 2000 replaces the need for a custom application on users’ computers. You can use the wizard to remove the custom application.

Toolbox   The Removal Wizard gives you a great deal of control over how you clean up users’ hard disks. For information about installing the wizard, see Removal Wizard.

Note   In Microsoft Windows NT, the Removal Wizard needs administrator permissions to run. Therefore, if the user does not have administrator permissions, you must run the wizard with the proper permissions.

You can run the Removal Wizard in one of three modes, depending on the degree to which you want to clean up users’ hard disks:

Aggressive mode   Removes all Office-related components, including components shared by more than one Office application. Before installing Office 2000, you might want to run the wizard in aggressive mode for users who are upgrading from a variety of Office versions.

Safe mode   Removes only components that are no longer needed. Components deleted in safe mode are not being used by any application.

Safe mode with user discretion   Runs in safe mode, but allows you to select which detected applications to keep and which to delete.

Caution   Never run the Removal Wizard in aggressive mode after you install Office 2000 because it removes all Office components, including those that might be needed by Office 2000 or an Office 2000-compatible application.

Tip   If you want to see a list of what files are deleted in the various modes, run the Removal Wizard to see the list or save the list in a text file. Then save the list as a text file and cancel the wizard. If you save the list as a text file, you can see which applications use which files.

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See also

You can use the Office Custom Installation Wizard to customize Setup so that it prompts users before removing components. For more information, see Office Custom Installation Wizard.