First things first: I did not want to do this at all. I hadn’t touched Windows at all since Windows 7 and for good reasons. This experience merely affirmed that decision, but I digress.

The Symptom

When I tried to install Microsoft Office 365 applications in Windows 10 within Virtualbox, the installer got stuck at “We’re getting things ready…”. It got stuck at not always exactly the same spot. To recover, I would have to kill Virtualbox and try again.

A Solution

I managed to get past this by doing the following:

  1. Download the offline installer for Microsoft Office 365. (Maybe this isn’t necessary, but it worked.) This is shipped as a disk image. You’ll find this under “Other options” when you download the installer.
  2. Mount the disk image.
  3. Browse inside the disk image using File Explorer.
  4. Ignore the installer program (called “Setup”) at the root of the disk image. (It’s a trap.)
  5. Enter the folder called “Office”. There are two installers in this folder: a 32-bit one and a 64-bit one.
  6. Do not yet run the 64-bit installer by merely double-clicking on it. It’s called “System64”. Instead, run this installer in “Windows 8 Compatibility Mode” and “Run as administrator”. You’ll find Compatibility Mode inside the installer’s Properties. You’ll find “Run as administrator” by right-clicking the installer.

This seemed to work.

Why?!

Due to various accidents of history, I have a QuickBooks backup file. Microsoft Excel alleges that it can import the backup file so that I can work with the data. Why QuickBooks? Because I ran Windows in 2001 when I opened my company and that’s what my then-bookkeeper used.

References

https://ilmubersama.com/2019/07/29/office-365-installing-stuck-at-were-getting-things-ready/. It’s in Indonesian, but it gave me the hint of running the installer in Windows 8 Compatbility Mode and as Administrator.