Curing random errors when installing Office 2013

Last Updated on November 29, 2015 by Dave Farquhar

I got lots of random errors installing Office 2013 when I went to do it, including error code 112-4 and error code 0-4, and some other install errors mostly ending in 4 that aren’t documented on Microsoft’s web site. Although previously undocumented, these errors are fixable.

It turned out I was too clever for my own good.

Long ago, I redirected the TEMP and TMP environment variables away from my C drive, and the volume holding that directory had filled up. Why Office couldn’t have just given me an error saying the disk was full is beyond me.

I had two options: clear some space, or move them back to the C drive in Advanced System Settings. And yes, on Windows 7, or later, you can pull up that control panel by hitting the Start button and typing Advanced System Settings. Be sure to check both the current user and system variables, because if you don’t change both of them, you’ll probably still run into problems.

So, if you’re pulling your hair out trying to get Office 2013 installed, and you’ve uninstalled Office, run their cleanup tool, and uninstalled it manually and none of it’s helped, check your disk space and check those environment variables. Or better yet, check your disk space and those environment variables before you spend an hour doing those things like I did.

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