I have a licensed MS Office 97 package which I have moved from PC to PC
over the years and I have just bought a new machine with XP Pro on it,
the latest release. When I install Office, I get the error "an error
occurred at changing the workgroup database" and "setup couldn't create a
system.mdw file....run the workgroup administrator before you run this
appliaction (-1011). When I run the workgroup administrator (something I
have never had to do before) it simply tries to remake this file and the
first error appears again.

The rest of Office installs fine. When I try to launch Access, I get the
message "microsoft access couldn't find the file .../system.mdw. This
file is required for startup" (path removed for brevity).

It worked fine on my last machine, which ran XP Pro Service Pack 2
(2002). And when I look for a file system.mdw on that machine, there is
none there.

Can anyone help me with this?

TIA.