Why do I receive the error "Installation ended prematurely because of an error" when I try to install Office XP?

A. An error message indicating that the installation didn't complete might be the result of incorrect registry permissions on the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office. To confirm that these permissions are correct, perform the following steps:

1. Start the registry editor (regedt32.exe on Windows 2000 or regedit.exe on Windows XP and Microsoft .NET Server).
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office.
3. From the Security menu (or the Edit menu in Windows XP), select Permissions. The permissions should be
   • Administrators - Full Control
   • Creator Owner - Full Control
   • Power Users - Special
   • System - Full Control
   • Users - Read
4. If the permissions onscreen don't match the permissions in Step 3, go to Step 5; otherwise, skip to Step 6.
5. Ensure that the 'Reset permissions on all child objects' checkbox is selected and that the 'Allow Inheritable permissions from parent to propagate to this object' checkbox is cleared, click OK, and click Yes to overwrite existing permissions.
6. Close the registry editor.