Microsoft Office 2000 and 2003 ~ YIKES!

[dmarklinger]

I seem to have BOTH versions of Microsoft Office showing up in my PROGRAM FILES library, although when I start any Office application, it says it's the Office 2003 version.
That being said, both versions were installed by COPIED cd's, and NEITHER show up on the ADD/REMOVE list in the CONTROL PANEL, should I wish to remove one version {the 2000 one}.
And there doesn't appear to be an UNINSTALL exe, nor an UNINSTALL option on either 2000 {or 2003!} for me to do this.
For years, Office Update always looked after fixes, versions, etc., but lately, I cannot download fixes to Outlook 2003 and Excel 2003, and am now 4 'repairs' behind. Secunia calls them THREATS when it scans my pc, so I'd like to remove BOTH versions and reinstall Office 2003 {I have a zipped file of this, which I'd use, plus the copied cd, if I really need it}.
Can I just delete the Office 2000 file folder and reboot, and use Office Update to get Office 2003 updated properly?
Or should I delete BOTH, reboot, reinstall Office 2003 and use Office Update to get Office 2003 updated properly?
Can I just delete file folders to remove Office 2000 or Office 2003 or both?

[arraknid]

Welcome to Help2Go,

The first thing to try is the Windows Installer Cleanup utility. That should track it/them down and clean things up.

You also have the option to download OpenOffice which is free and works as well, if not better, than MS Office. It's totally compatible with all MS file types too - both when loading and saving.

[dmarklinger]

I will try the installer cleanup utility then.
I've heard that, while OpenOffice is very good, the email application is not as good as Outlook 2003, which is one of my primary applications, so I don't really wish to change.
Thanks, though!

[arraknid]

There is no email application in OpenOffice! It'll prepare your document in a variety of formats, then open the default email client to send it - in your case Outlook.

This explains further.

[dmarklinger]

Thanks for the information re OpenOffice, appreciated.
While it looks tempting, it also looks like a lot of 'changing things around' for me, something I'm not prepared to do, unless my Office 2000/2003 problems gets WORSE!
I use Outlook 2003 for all my calendaring, contacts...'LIFE', so to speak.
I'm living with it at the moment.
I'll keep looking for a fix...