Windows installer service could not be accessed

[WIlliam]

Boy do I have troubles! I have been having problems with
Office XP on a machine that was originally installed with
Windows ME and upgraded to XP. The office install is
from the original ME install. In Outlook all the dialog
boxes start filling in jiberish, and in both Outlook and
Word the drop down menus keep opening themselves up.
Appently the solution is to install the Service packs,
but....I have been trying to update Office XP without
success. I did the entire Knowledge base article #309191
without success. So I tried to uninstall Office and do a
clean reinstall. I got a message saying that Windows
installer service could not be accessed, so I did
everything in knowledge base article 315346. When I
tried to run msiexec/regserver I got a message saying
msiexec/regserver could not be found.

Well guess what?! There is no knowledge base article for
this problem. So I lay may problems before you in the
hopes that one of you infinatly more inteligent techs
will know the answers to my woes. Anyone that can solve
my problem will officially be my hero for a month (maybe
two) (as long as it does not involve a complete ground up
reinstall of my machine)

REALLY, I NEED HELP!!!