hello again Nikkilm,
Yes MS Office is installed and you helpfully mention restoring to a point prior to that interupted update. The question is how to do that because other updates have come and worked but not SP1 and the use of the restore function seems to restore to a point close to now and this is not early enough?
That is: it is not before the bad update and corruption.
By the way, the error messages from attempted installation of SP1 is 0x80070490. The windows site says this indicates corruption in the "Component Based Service (CBS) Manifest". This sounds deep and complex. What I know is that I cannot open Office applications (word, excel, outlook) from the start menu or from a memory stick.
Is a system or startup repair the only solution? Tahnk you Grador