Microsoft Office Suite 2013 stopped working recently.

I ended up spending an entire day with Chat GPT to fix the problem.

@Evelyn

Does that mean you have now fixed the problem? In that case, would my mind telling us how you fixed it? Your response may help other people who are looking for assistance.

Hi @Evelyn

The “another installation is in progress” message usually means an Office installation or update is still running, or a previous installation didn’t complete correctly.

Try these steps in order:

1. Check the Windows notification area for an Office installation icon. If you see one, let it finish. Otherwise, restart the computer and try opening Word or Excel again. Microsoft lists restarting as the first action for this error.
2. If the applications still won’t open, repair the existing Office installation: Open Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features. Select Microsoft Office 2013 and choose Change. For an MSI installation, select Repair. For Click-to-Run, select Online Repair. Repair applies to the entire Office suite, including Word, Excel, and Outlook.
3. Before uninstalling anything, back up your Outlook data. In classic Outlook, select: File > Open & Export > Import/Export > Export to a file > Outlook Data File (.pst) Select the email account and enable Include subfolders. The export creates a copy of the email, contacts, and calendar data without removing them from Outlook.
4. If repair fails, uninstall the existing Office suite through Control Panel > Programs and Features, restart Windows, and then reinstall only the Office 2013 edition associated with the Microsoft account or valid product key. Uninstalling Office removes the applications but doesn’t remove Word documents, Excel workbooks, or other files created with them.

Avoid repeatedly starting installations from both the CD and your Microsoft account, as this may leave the installation incomplete.

Please note that Office 2013 reached the end of extended support on April 12, 2023, and no longer receives security or reliability updates. If possible, consider moving to a supported version of Office or Microsoft 365 after recovering the Outlook data.

References:

Another Office installation is in progress

Repair an Office application

Export Outlook data to a PST file

Office 2013 lifecycle

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