Hey, you there! Yes, you, Microsoft Word user -- you in the blue shirt. Do you want to have the contents of your computer's memory overwritten with malicious code? Really... you sure? We could take care of that for you, no problem. Are you positive about this? Lots of people seem to enjoy having their memory overwritten with malicious code, so we thought you might... OK, OK, no need to get snippy about it.If you're certain you don't want your memory overwritten (c'mon, think of it like a weekend in Cabo -- what harm could it do?) then perhaps we could interest you in the Microsoft Office 2004 11.3.8 updater, which patches a vulnerability in Word (also present in Word 2000 and Word XP, but not in 2003 or 2007) that could allow the aforementioned overwriting. It's a 9.1 MB download or you can snag it from Office's Microsoft Auto-Update tool. Note that this is a patch only for 11.3.7, just in case you're a bit behind on your update schedule. As an added treat, the update is available in eight languages. Nice.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-11-2007 @ 8:37PM
Cycomachead said...
Don't they fix this issue in every update?
M$, you bunch of liars!
Finally 5 days and I'll have iWork and will only use Office for certain special word art things. Not to mention word won't print and i dont care to fix it.
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10-11-2007 @ 8:43PM
Nate said...
Wait a tick! What's the deal? This is a post NOT about the iPhone. WTF?
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10-11-2007 @ 8:45PM
Michael Rose said...
Oops! Sorry, Nate, my mistake!
:-)
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10-11-2007 @ 8:46PM
Adam Mabe said...
@cycomachead
No silly, that was THE OTHER bug that allowed the contents of your computer's memory overwritten with malicious code. Don't get confused :)
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10-11-2007 @ 8:59PM
matt said...
Nate: I was shocked, too! The only non iPhone/iPod Touch post out of the most recent seven posts on TUAW.
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10-11-2007 @ 9:03PM
michael said...
FWIW, when I grudgingly installed this update (it DOES feel like I've installed this identically described fix many times before), the updater crashed (ie, "quit unexpectedly") - and my Msft Word application file has disappeared.
The Microsoft Office 2004 folder in Applications now contains just Entourage, Excel and Powerpoint.
Pretty sweet.
I don't know what sort of advice this translates into, but...well, it's a user-report.
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10-11-2007 @ 9:05PM
Justin said...
So where are all those people complaining about too many iPhone/iPod posts?!
Now that we have some, they won't come appreciate them?
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10-11-2007 @ 9:11PM
noza said...
Funny, when it's in Office that your memory gets overwritten by malicious code, that's a Bad Thing. But when your iPhone's memory gets overwritten by malicious code (in a TIFF file hehehe) then that's a Good Thing!
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10-11-2007 @ 9:59PM
Quine said...
@michael: that wasn't a bug, the update removed malicious code that was already present on your computer, commonly known as the "MSOffice" worm.
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10-11-2007 @ 10:36PM
Cycomachead said...
sorry, I have a hard time keeping track of all them bugs ;-)
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10-11-2007 @ 11:19PM
RMS said...
If TUAW wasn't posting a million iPhone hacking articles, they might have noticed that this came out two days ago. Sorry guys, but I'm moving on.
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10-12-2007 @ 7:27AM
Michael Rose said...
11 -- RMS, and the oh-so-funny "what's wrong, this isn't an iPhone hack post!" comments: sorry you're so disappointed, we'll miss you.
The fact is that TUAW isn't a newspaper with a limited number of column inches, and we weren't "too busy" to notice an MS Office upgrade, since Erica's posts don't slow the rest of us down. What does slow us down is everything else we have to do in our lives/jobs/school/families. I would have been happy to post about Office 11.3.8 two days ago if I'd had a moment to breathe. :-(
Anyway, since you've moved on you won't read this, but au revoir.
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10-12-2007 @ 9:07AM
Victor Agreda Jr said...
...but we'll always have those 3 comments
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10-12-2007 @ 12:10PM
Luna Lovegood said...
"We'll miss you."
You'll miss the eyeballs on the ads.
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10-12-2007 @ 12:17PM
Michael Rose said...
Yes, Luna, we'll miss the eyeballs on the ads. Thank you for your thoughtful lesson on Webonomics 2.0; we would be bereft without your cogent and trenchant comments.
Tell ya what we won't miss: the extra snark.
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10-12-2007 @ 12:35PM
jayjay said...
This TUAW article seems to have a bit of attitude...
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10-12-2007 @ 12:52PM
Kurt said...
Hey Michael, ease up. The first sign of a weblog jumping the shark is when the authors get defensive in the comments. I happen not to care much about the iPhone posts and the current debate, but you need to rise above the taunts. While this is your forum, you don't need to respond and have the luxury of ignoring the posts that bother you.
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