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When I posted all the messages above I sent a copy to MS here in Oz, they replied to-day that they thought I had a corrupt registry key and told me to back up the registry and then proceed as follows:
REGISTRY EDITING
1. Click on 'Start' -> 'Run'
2. Type 'regedit' (without the quotation marks) and click 'OK'. The Registry Editor should start.
3. Navigate to the required registry keys by double-clicking on each key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Installer\Products
4. Below the 'Products' key, select each 32-character {GUID} until you find the one whose 'ProductName' value matches your version of Office. For example, the 32-character {GUID} for Office 2000 Premium is 904000001E872D116BF00006799C897E.
5. With the 32-character {GUID} for your Office product selected, click on 'Edit' -> 'Delete'.
6. Click 'Yes' when prompted to confirm the deletion.
7. Click on 'File' -> 'Exit'.
8. Run Setup for Office again.
Guess what! Everything seems to be back to normal, installation, updates etc. etc.
Thanks for your time and your help, very much appreciated and you put me on the right track.
Cheers, BE.