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Uninstaller overcomes Office 2007's Error 1310

The Revo Uninstaller managed to remove the trial version of Office Enterprise 2007 Enterprise when the program's own uninstall routine failed.

Dennis O'Reilly Former CNET contributor
Dennis O'Reilly began writing about workplace technology as an editor for Ziff-Davis' Computer Select, back when CDs were new-fangled, and IBM's PC XT was wowing the crowds at Comdex. He spent more than seven years running PC World's award-winning Here's How section, beginning in 2000. O'Reilly has written about everything from web search to PC security to Microsoft Excel customizations. Along with designing, building, and managing several different web sites, Dennis created the Travel Reference Library, a database of travel guidebook reviews that was converted to the web in 1996 and operated through 2000.
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Dennis O'Reilly
2 min read

At or near the top of the list of aggravations for new PC owners is the trial version of a program that came preinstalled on the system refusing to uninstall once the trial period expires. The irritation really peaks when the product in question is from Microsoft.

Before I could install a bought-and-paid-for copy of Outlook 2007 on my laptop, I had to uninstall the trial version of Office Enterprise 2007 that was preinstalled on the machine's hard drive when I bought it several months ago. Very early in the uninstall process, an alert popped up reporting Error 1310 and instructing me to verify that I had access to a certain directory.

Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 uninstall error message
An attempt to uninstall the trial version of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 generated an error message. Microsoft

I decided to try the uninstall again using the free Revo Uninstaller utility. In addition to cleaning up the Registry entries, files, folders, and other refuse that the program's own uninstaller misses, Revo Uninstaller finds and deletes junk files on your PC and performs other cleanup duties.

In the case of the balky Office 2007 uninstaller, Revo Uninstaller appeared to help, though I had to click Retry about 352 times during the successful removal. Each time I clicked Retry, Revo Uninstaller reloaded and the green Office uninstall utility progress bar crept almost-imperceptibly from left to right.

Finally, the Office uninstaller reported that the program had been removed successfully. That's when Revo Uninstaller went to work, reporting that the trialware had left behind 533 Registry items and 29 files and folders. I chose Select All in each case, and then pressed Delete to remove them for good.

Revo Uninstaller Registry scan results
The free Revo Uninstaller utility identified 533 Registry entries that the Office 2007 uninstaller missed. VS Revo Group

Before I exited Revo Uninstaller, I clicked the program's Autorun Manager and deselected several autostart programs that had been slowing down my start-ups unnecessarily.

Revo Uninstaller Autorun Manager
Revo Uninstaller's Autorun Manager lets you trim the number of programs that start with Windows. VS Revo Group

Now that I've managed to uninstall a Microsoft program I didn't ask for, don't want, and couldn't get rid of, I can now install the Microsoft application I paid more than $100 for. Why would anyone choose to do business with such a company?