Visual Studio requires that Office 2003 with Service Pack 1 be installed on your computer before you install Visual Studio. You must have one of the following Office 2003 products installed on this machine first:
If you do not have one of these application you can find out more information about them at: http://office.microsoft.com/.
If you do not have Service Pack 1 for Office 2003 you can download and install this service pack from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdate/default.aspx. After you install this service pack you will have to restart Visual Studio setup, double-click setup.exe on the CD, DVD, or network share you installed from or click the appropriate link on the download Web site.
Note: It is highly recommended that you regularly check for and install updates for Office 2003. To search for operating system updates, see http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com//.
Service packs are the means by which product updates are distributed. Service packs can contain updates to improve system reliability, program compatibility, security, and more. For more information on Microsoft Service Packs, see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;sp.