OpenOffice.org Help TNT: Tips'n'Tricks that somehow didn't make it to the help (yet).

Sometimes you want to perform a clean reinstallation of OpenOffice.org. No previous settings should be imported from the previous installation. This is not complicated, but it requires one important manual step. First let me explain where the OOo folders are to be found.

The folders

OpenOffice.org occupies two folders with some subfolders on your computer. If you have downloaded a single big OOo file, a third folder is involved.

The download version

If you have downloaded your version, you most possibly have a very big download file in your browser's download directory, and a folder with a name like "OpenOffice.org installation files".

The very big download file has an .exe extension on Windows. It is a self-extracting archive file. You double-click it, and a dialog asks you for the folder where to store the installation files. Later the very big file can be used to archive this version on a backup medium, or you can delete the file.

The "OpenOffice.org installation files" folder should not be deleted, because it contains vital information on the files that get installed. You cannot perform a clean uninstallation of OpenOffice.org if you delete the "OpenOffice.org installation files" folder. --- NOTE: the developer in charge of this mechanism assured me that you can safely delete this whole folder. This is in conflict with my own experience, however. Make your own choice. ---

The setup program

After the self-extracting big archive file has created the "OpenOffice.org installation files" folder it automatically calls the setup program from inside that folder. If you have found OOo on a CD, the setup program is there inside an installation folder.

This setup program displays some dialogs where you can choose the folder and modules to install. To change the default settings, you must select the custom installation.

After setup, you can find the shared files (formerly known as the "network installation" files)

• on Windows systems in a folder that has a name like C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org

• on Linux systems that folder may be located in /opt/openoffice.org

(normally, the version number of OpenOffice.org is a part of that folder names)

All users that want to run OOo should have "read and execute" permissions for these files, but only the administrator should have "write" permissions.

The setup program also installs a desktop integration, either for you or for all users on the machine. This essentially means there are some links in your Start menu that call the programs from the "network installation/programs" folder.

Now, when you or any user starts an executable program file of OOo the first time, the Welcome dialog is displayed. Accept the license and continue through the dialog pages. At the end of this stage, the "profile" folder from the shared "network installation" folder will be automatically copied to your home folder and renamed to "user".

• On Linux systems, you now have a hidden folder like ~/.openoffice.org/user

• On Windows XP systems, this is the folder C:\Documents und Settings\your_name\Application data\OpenOffice.org\user

• On Windows Vista systems, this is the folder C:\Users\your_name\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice.org\user

(add the version number to the OpenOffice.org folder name)

You may need to enable viewing hidden and system files to be able to see this folder.

Clean removal of all config files

So, after this long explanation, you know some facts about the file structure of OOo on your system. Now I can tell you the trick and give you a tip - this is the OOo Tips and Tricks blog, isn't it?

The trick is this: when an administrator with write permissions to the "network installation" files starts a deinstallation, this only removes the "network installation" files. All the "user" folders of all users are still there. These folders contain the customized configuration that the users have set up, among other files like custom wordbooks, custom autotexts, and much more.

This means if there might be some problem with the user configuration, that uninstalling and reinstalling will not help at all. The user configuration gets not changed by a reinstallation. At least this is true for small upgrades from one developer snapshot to the next. There may be some changes when you install a new release version to the same network folder as the old version. But normally this would not happen, because release versions have different folder names for the "network installation" folder.

So here is the tip: the right way to perform a clean reinstallation, deleting all existing user settings from previous versions, is as follows:

1. First, as an administrator, uninstall the "network installation" files.

2. Then delete the "user" folder from the user's home directory, as stated above. If you do not want a clean reinstallation, do not touch this user folder.

3. Then remove the "OpenOffice.org installation files" folder if it exists.

4. Now the admin can perform an installation of the new "network installation" folder, and every user can start OOo again to automatically copy the "profile" folder to the "user" folder.

After a clean install, every user must set all the personal settings again. Documents that have been saved to other folders are still there, of course.