Office 2007 Woes

Just about every computer I've had to install Office 2007 on has gotten an error during the installation...usually right at the end. There are a couple of different problems I have, but all of them say something to the effect of "can't read files from source" (one example is the Error 1706). Now, I'm copying the entire Office 2007 discs to the hard drive of each computer and then running the install from that, so that if Office ever needs to install new add-ons or whatever, it won't go asking for the CD. Why it has a harder time reading files from the hard drive, I can't say (although the knowledge base article does make a little sense out of the 1706 error).

Sometimes forcing a chkdsk at startup before the install fixes it, sometimes I have to run it multiple times. But I never know if it'll work or not until Office 2007 is just about completely installed. Then it needs to rollback all the changes it made before I can attempt an install again. I know this is a good thing, but it has taken up so much of my time I can't even bear to think about how much of my life has been wasted fiddling with it.

I'm sure Office 2007 is a great program, but why the installer is so picky about whatever the problem is (and doesn't really explain what the problem was) makes me grateful I'm using Ubuntu and OpenOffice on my computers at home.