Filed under: Software
Office 2008 for Mac updated to 12.1.1
Microsoft has released a "critical" Office 2008 update, 12.1.1, which "contains several improvements to enhance stability and performance."
Several issues are fixed with the updates, including charting problems, Entourage crashing when the computer wakes from sleep, and issues regarding converting documents to and from the Open XML Format. A complete list of improvements is available in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.
The update can be installed via Microsoft AutoUpdate (accessible by choosing "Check for Updates" in any Office application's Help menu) or from Microsoft directly. The update is a 153MB DMG file, and is available in 11 languages.
Thanks, Tommy!

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
THJ said 5:29PM on 6-24-2008
So is it time to jump to 2008 from 2004? All I've heard so far is that 2008 runs much slower than 2004. Has that changed? Thanks in advance
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jln said 8:37PM on 6-24-2008
2008 may run much slower than 2004 but it crashes far more faster. At least something it does better than 2004...
listservs said 5:38PM on 6-24-2008
I'm waiting for the announcement that says "contains several improvements that causes Office not to suck anymore."
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Craig said 5:48PM on 6-24-2008
Finally they have patched the ridiculous, stupid bug where you couldn't open anything you downloaded from the internet. Honestly, is there any QC for something so basic in Redmond???
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Ket said 1:09AM on 6-25-2008
finally. this was the MOST annoying bug. I click links to word docs all day long on our intranet.
Ket said 2:19AM on 6-25-2008
bah, expose for word is still jacked up. switching from a non word window to a word window still doesn't select the proper one. say you have windows word1 and word2, where word1 is the last one you were using. switch to something else (safari), then try to select word2 will actually bring word1 to the forefront.
2004 worked properly with expose. WTF is up with 2008?
those waiting for 2008 to be usable, you still have a bit of waiting. i would stick with 2004 for word, but i do like entourage for 2008.
WickDC said 6:06PM on 6-24-2008
Apps load a bit faster, but still crazy slow. It's insane actually. Quad 3Ghz, 8GB ram, and still forever to load. Font caches cleared, unchecked all the font viewing stuff, oy! Office 2007 running in Parallels all open INSTANTLY.
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Robert Palmer said 6:09PM on 6-24-2008
I think @hotdogsladies tweet from a few days ago still applies: http://twitter.com/hotdogsladies/statuses/838961164
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THJ said 10:26AM on 6-25-2008
Haha, nice. I think I'll wait till office 2012.
DRay said 6:10PM on 6-24-2008
Another update and yet Word still loads so @#!* slow!
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Peter Payne said 10:15PM on 6-24-2008
Yes, it is really embarrassing how slow this thing loads. I buy my wife a brand new Macbook Air and new Office, and she's like, I prefer my 2003 era iBook, can I use that instead? WTF here guys?
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skyman375 said 11:27PM on 6-24-2008
I can't install it - I've got 12.1.0 (080409) installed, and the updater downloads the 12.1.1 update, but I get the following error:
"You cannot install Office 2008 12.1.1 Update on this volume. A version of the software required to install this update was not found on this volume."
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skyman375 said 11:28PM on 6-24-2008
I can't install it - I've got 12.1.0 (080409) installed, and the updater downloads the 12.1.1 update, but I get the following error:
"You cannot install Office 2008 12.1.1 Update on this volume. A version of the software required to install this update was not found on this volume."
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Alejandro Ramirez said 1:48AM on 6-25-2008
For those of you experiencing issues updating to Office 12.1.1. Here are some suggestions:
1) If using the standalone updater, please make sure you downloaded the one for your language of Office 2008.
2) If you have moved the "Microsoft Office 2008" folder, please place it back to its original location (/Applications folder).
3) If you renamed the "Microsoft Office 2008" folder please change the name back to its original form.
4) If you have modified in any way the files inside the Microsoft Office 2008 installation this could prevent the update from succeeding. If you have and you can't return Office to its original contents, please remove office (you can use the Remove Office tool) and reinstall the product from your original media. After updating to 12.1.0 (SP1) I recommend that you restart your machine before applying the 12.1.1 update.
5) If you performed other updates to Office 2008 prior to the 12.1.1. update (i.e. 12.1 SP1) I would advice to restart your computer and try again.
I will continue to monitor other users posts and hope that these suggestions help you.
Alejandro Ramirez
Microsoft Mac BU
Dan said 4:10AM on 6-25-2008
#4 of Alejandro's post is perhaps one of the most likely causes of most folks inability to update. In my case, I use a script which trims extra languages from my apps. This definitely falls into that category.
skyman375 said 6:45AM on 6-25-2008
I had renamed the folder - thanks! Of course, why the heck does that break an update? That seams like a pretty basic thing for an update to be able to handle.
dex said 1:30AM on 6-25-2008
I have a suspicion that Microsoft only took the old Office 2004, made it worse and patched a new interface on it. Maybe they want us to move on Windows but Office 2008 is seriously so much crap for so much money (unless you are student or teacher) that I don't see a single reason to buy it. Not one. I'd rather go for Crossover/VMware/Parallels-Office 2007 than this.
Btw I had 2008 installed but the last drop was when the first big Microsoft update forced me to restart my computer (WHY, it's just a text editor?!) while succesfully managing to trash my Spotlight index so Spotlight had to completely rebuild it. Stupid.
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ben said 2:53AM on 6-25-2008
why is this a ~150mb download and why does it say it neds ~450MB of Hard drive space?
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Cameron said 2:55AM on 6-25-2008
im having problems now that the updates are installed.
i go to open word 08 and it loads this setup thing, i tell it i dont want to participate in the customer survey thing then click finish. it loads up the microsoft autoupdate utility and i close that because its all up to date. after that nothing happens. no light below word on the dock and nothing happening. rather frustrating.
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Mikenet said 4:59AM on 6-25-2008
same problem here. can't open word, excel...
any suggestions (other than re-install)?