OFF97: Setup Overwrites Office 95 Start Menu Items (156817)

SYMPTOMS

When you install Microsoft Office 97, menu items on the Start menu that belong to Microsoft Office 95 programs are overwritten with menu items that belong to Microsoft Office 97 programs.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because the Microsoft Office 97 Setup program and the Microsoft Office 95 Setup program are designed to create menu items with the same names (Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and so on) in the same location on the Start menu. Because two sets of menu items cannot exist in the same folder simultaneously, the older menu items are overwritten by the newer Office 97 menu items. This behavior occurs unless you move the Microsoft Office 95 menu items to a different location.

NOTE: Assuming Microsoft Windows is installed in drive C, the folder that stores the Office 97 shortcuts is the C:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs folder.

WORKAROUND

To work around this behavior, move the Microsoft Office 95 menu items to a different folder in the Programs folder. To do this, use the following steps:

In the Windows Explorer, right-click the Start menu and click Open.
In the "C:\Windows\Start Menu" window, double-click Programs.
On the File menu, point to New, and click Folder. Name the new folder "Microsoft Office 95" (without the quotation marks) and press ENTER.
Select the following items in the Programs folder:
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Binder
Microsoft Word
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Schedule+
Drag the selected items onto the Microsoft Office 95 folder and release the mouse button.

The menu items are removed from the Programs folder and appear in the Microsoft Office 95 folder. In this location, they will not be overwritten by the Microsoft Office 97 Setup program.

MORE INFORMATION

This behavior may cause problems if you need to run both Microsoft Office 95 and Microsoft Office 97 programs on the same computer. If this is the case, use the workaround in this article to retain the Microsoft Office 95 menu items.

Note that if you install Microsoft Office 95 after installing Microsoft Office 97, the menu items for the Microsoft Office 97 programs are overwritten. You can use the same workaround to retain the Microsoft Office 97 menu items (you may want to give the new folder a different name).