Googling the error message brings results

By Peter Vogel

Recently a math teacher colleague requested help with a problem he was encountering while attempting to install Microsoft Office 2007 on a new Tablet PC he had purchased. Such machines have become quite popular as instructional tools with math teachers.

Repeated attempts to install Office generated a rather unhelpful error box: "Setup cannot continue because a required file is either corrupted or not available. Run Setup again from original source disc or download location."

No indication as to where the problem file might be. On the system? On the installation DVD? Was the file truly missing? The installation DVD was brand new and had no obvious scratches. It's not out of the question, but in my experience I've not encountered this sort of condition with a Microsoft product.

Initially we thought it might be an incompatibility with the existing trial Office version on the machine. However removal of the trial version made no difference.

After thinking about it for a while we decided to Google (look up) the error message. Initial results weren't terribly helpful, but adding a couple of keywords such as Office and the computer brand seemed more promising. While digging through several postings we hit potential pay dirt. On a technical site managed in India, a member had left a note that was highly specific to my colleague's machine, an ASUS TabletPC.

Not only was the note specific to the machine, it matched the operating system, Vista, and the presence of a third-party utility, Nero Essentials, a package for burning CDs and DVDs on the internal optical disk.

This poster had encountered the same error message, under the same circumstances. He reasoned (I'm guessing here) that third-party applications, outside the standard operating system and Microsoft application software, may have been the cause of the error condition.

His recommendation: stop a certain "service" controlling part of the Nero software. That "service" in this case is the InCD service, a utility that provides drag-and-drop functionality for optical disks.

A typical home computer will typically have 20 or more services running in the background. Many are critical: stop one or more of them and the computer grinds to a halt. The InCD service, however, is not mission-critical.

To stop a service on the Vista or XP O/S, go to the Control Panel, select Administrative Tools and then Services. The services are listed alphabetically. In my colleague's case we selected the InCD line, used right-click to select "Properties," changed the Startup type from "Automatic" to "Manual," and then clicked on the "Stop" button to halt the application.

We rebooted the machine to complete any removal steps that might be leftover from the earlier "uninstall" and then proceeded with the new Office 2007 installation.

"Bingo!" No more error message. The installation proceeded without further issues. Upon completion we returned to the "Services" list and reactivated the InCD service for disk burning.

Convoluted? You bet. Could we have done it without an Internet search? Probably, but it might have taken hours. Might the computer manufacturer have been able to help? A search of the ASUS web site turned up nothing.

Is my colleague grateful that someone took the time to post the specifics of this relatively isolated incident on a web site? Definitely.

My only regret is that the helpful site did not permit further postings from outsiders. I try to urge colleagues and friends who encounter this sort of useful assistance to follow up with postings of their own.

In this case, given that we couldn't add to the note that had helped us, I urged my colleague to make a posting to the B.C. Association of Math Teachers list service as there are likely to be others encountering just this predicament. In fact there is already another colleague in my school, with an almost identical machine; I expect he will see this same error condition.

For more on Tablet PCs: www.tabletpcreview.com.

For more on services and processes running on your computer, consider downloading the fine Process Explorer produced by the highly respected Mark Russinovich (his company Sysinternals was recently acquired by Microsoft). Consider it a Task Manager on steroids! Get Process Explorer from either microsoft.com or download.com or via redirect from www.sysinternals.com.

Math teachers wanting to learn more about incorporating Tablet PCs into their classroom instruction may contact my colleague, Casey Kozdron (ckozdron@ndrs.org).

Suggestions and comments for this column may be sent to peterv@portal.ca.