What does Microsoft mean by "Maintenance mode"?

[glomedia]

I've checked out the Microsoft knowledge base articles; and they often state that to solve certain problems in Microsoft Office 97 one should run the setup program (on the Office CD) in "maintenance mode."

I can't find anything on the MS site that tells me exactly what "maintenance mode" is. Can anyone enlighten me?

P.S. I'm running Windows 98.

[Rapmaster]

Maybe it means "Safe Mode" ??

But you won't have access to a CD ROM drive in safe mode, so those instructions wouldn't make sense

Don't know...

[Report_2]

Similar to going to Add/Remove to get the 'Repair' option for IE I believe the Office CD has the Maintenance mode (repair) as an option versus install or uninstall.

[Calpitor]

maintenance mode Configuration mode of an operating system for installing, updating, or removing applications

Using maintenance mode to repair features or applications
Access to maintenance mode is through the Add/Remove Programs utility of Control Panel. The Add/Remove Programs utility starts Windows Installer and, if necessary, changes the install configuration of the operating system to allow changes to registry branches and restricted folders.

When Windows Installer is in maintenance mode, and when it is set to use elevated privileges, users can make changes to their installation of Office. They have the option of opening the feature tree in Setup and changing the state of an application or feature to Installed on First Use or Not Available. Setting an application or feature to either of these two installation states removes all the files and registry settings associated with the feature or application (excluding user settings) from the computer.

Users can be restricted from running in maintenance mode by using system policy settings.