If you use Office 2003, you should know about the Office 2003 Local Installation Source Tool. You may never need to use it, but if you do run into a problem with the Local Installation Source (LIS), it can save you hours of frustration. (If you use Office XP or Office 2000, see the note at the end of this post.)
A brief explanation: When you install Office 2003, all of the setup files are copied to your hard drive in a hidden folder called Msocache. This uses about 400MB of space but allows you to repair your Office installation or add new features without having to track down the original CD.
The problem occurs if the Msocache folder gets corrupted, or if you delete it the wrong way (using Windows Explorer), or if the disk on which it’s located becomes unavailable for any reason. Yesterday, I bumped into this issue when I tried to export a list of addresses from Outlook. As part of the process, Outlook wanted to install a converter, but the LIS was nowhere to be found – it had originally been on an external drive that I had reformatted for use on another computer. The result? I received a string of error messages , most in the format “Error 1327. Invalid Drive: f:\” and was unable to complete the export, even when I made the Office CD available.
The LIS Tool fixed the problem. I was able to find a copy of the Msocache folder on another computer, copy it to my C: drive, and use the tool to point Office to the new location. You can also use it to enable or disable LIS.
A bit esoteric, but extremely handy.
(Note: If you get an error 1327 with Office 2000, see Knowledge Base article 217666. To resolve this problem with Office XP, see Knowledge Base article 290356.)
Ed Bott 
One question,would Office 2003 LIS tool be worth downloading for the home user not involved with a work invironment, just using Office 2003 for email and word applications for personal use only? J.B.
This tool is very useful for home users. In fact, it’s more appropriate for a home/small biz user than a corporate user, because the corporate IT department usually has a volume license copy with a network installation source.
Ed
Thanks for sharing with us the Office 2003 LIS tool. My son came home from college yesterday and complained that he could not get his Office 2003 to install Service Pack 2. Well, I downloaded the tool and installed and it works!!!! I was able to get my son’s Office 2003 all up to date. My son was really impressed with me, so please; don’t tell him that I got this idea from you.
Regarding the MSO List Tool
ED,
If your MSO cache got damaged and you had to find another MSO cache on a separate drive (in most home user circumstances, if it exists, it would be a drive external to the computer in question), how is that any more convenient than having to hunt down the Office 2003 Installation CD?
The problem arises mostly on laptops and when it happens, it is a problem because the user doesn’t have the installation CD with him. In this circumstance, he is also unlikely to have access to another hard drive AND the requisite permissions to copy an MSO cache from another computer. In fact I think the Microsoft instructions with the LIS.exe tool say the MSO cache cannot be copied to another physical drive.
Does Lis.exe somehow protect the MSO cache from accidental deletion or alteration?
Hi Ed; One of my employees uses word very often and uses the “table” option on the word 2003 toolbar. He has recently lost “table”
It just doesn’t appear on the toolbar next to “tools” where it used to be. Any suggestions how to locate it and get it back onto the toolbar?
I tried unistalling office and reinstalling and it didn’t work!
Thx
Dennis
Dennnis,
Tell your friend to choose Tools, Customize. Click the Toolbars tab on the Customize dialog box and then click the Reset button.
What happened? The Office menus are actually just all-text toolbars, and it sounds like the Table command accidentally got dragged off the menu bar. Using the Reset button puts things back to their default settings.
Dennis,
Running office 2003 and I cannot open or send attachments in Microsoft Outlook. The error message says ” cannot find file: Attachment name. Locate file and give permissions” .At least that is what I remember it says. I have tried reinstalling Office. Can you help before I pull my hair out?