My Office XP word doesn't work suddenly, possibly because my son used some registry program to remove some game. When I try to run the install of office XP I get the following message:"This pack package could not be opened. Verify that the patch package exists and that you can access it, or contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer patch package." I can't seem to add/remove office XP(get the same message) or install it, when the set-up runs it doesn't even start, it gets that message right away. Can anyone help? Thanks, Steve

try Microsoft's upgrade for Windows Installer: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f1b7a5b0-611b-45a7-a06d-cadff33e64da&DisplayLang=en

Hi, I just tried that, getting the same message when trying to install or remove Office XP, anything else I can try? Thanks, Steve

Hi Steve I've recently gotten that same error along with another on my Office 2000. Mine's a little more involved but stems from me installing Winfax Pro 10.02 on my machine. It's messed with my Word 2000. Anyways, there is a fix for it at Microsoft Support Knowledge Base ... the exact address is http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;295823 You should be able to copy and paste that addy to your browser's address line. I haven't had a chance to use this yet but I will be when I get home tonight. Good luck. HTH MindsEye

Hi it looks like the program your son used my have messed up registory, you can try to use a backup registry if the problem is last couple days ago. boot in DOS mode not windows dos, u must get the Dos,safe mode screen and select dos. at dos prompt type in scanreg and press enter it will list previous registrys, selete one before the problem started.then you might have to use a registry auto editor to remove sons game from the registry. Good luck!