Skip to Content

Microsoft Office rolls up to 12.1.7, trial edition downloadable

by Michael Rose Apr 15th 2009 at 9:00AM

There's an update in town, and it's all about locking it down: the 12.1.7 update to Microsoft Office 2008 (available within the suite via the software update tool, or downloadable from Microsoft) closes two security holes present in multiple versions of Microsoft Excel and first acknowledged by the company in February. These vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to create a specially-configured Excel file that, when opened, would allow full control of the target machine.

The update package also bundles up all the previous patches to Office 2008, which lends it heft (it weighs in at over 150 MB) but simplifies matters if you're a few revs behind. Note that there is no 12.1.6 update in the sequence; the previous patch level was 12.1.5.

If you haven't made the leap to Office 2008 yet (perhaps you're on a PPC Mac; perhaps you feel that you get better interoperability with Office 2003 users on Windows; perhaps you have to have Visual Basic support for macros), Microsoft is giving you the chance to consider moving up with a full-featured 30-day demo of Office 2008, now available for download in the USA. The package includes all the Office apps and can be upgraded to a paid license in the field without purchasing a boxed copy and reinstalling. Upgrades from previous editions of Office start at $240... of course, there are some less expensive alternatives out there.

[h/t Ars Technica]



View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

Software

There's an update in town, and it's all about locking it down: the 12.1.7 update to Microsoft Office 2008 (available within the suite via...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

20 Comments

Filter by:
Matej

Well,

After upgrade to 12.1.7 PowePoint, Word, Excell started to crash. I did call Microsoft support and only advice I got was to completely remove Office and reinstall from the beginning....

May 08 2009 at 8:52 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jeff

Well, I had Office 2004 prior to getting a great deal from MS for Office 2008 through the company I work for (legal copy for $25!). While loading does seem a bit slower (again, I have a PPC, not an Intel) than Office 2004, once loaded, all is as zippy as ever. I can put up with another 10 seconds to load.

April 19 2009 at 12:00 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ian

...but still comes with the same old problem:

"You cannot install Office 2008 12.1.7 Update on this volume. A version of the software required to install this update was not found on this volume."

Help!!!!!

April 16 2009 at 6:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Ian's comment
Jason Brown

Greetings and Salutations

Some folks have mentioned that they have not been able to install the Office 12.1.7 update. I would like to remind folks of some of the caveats that apply to installing an Office update.

NAME
-----
The Apple Installer technology that we are using requires that the application and the folder they reside in maintain their original names. If you have renamed the applications or the folder they reside in, you'll need to revert it to the original names.

LOCATION
------------
While you drag Office anywhere after an install, the Apple Installer technology will not find a copy of Office that is not on a bootable partition. So if you have Office on a spare partition with no OS on it, you'll need to move it to a partition that has an OS on it.

LANGUAGE
-----------
The updater only works on the language it was intended for; therefore, if you installed Italian Office, the German updater will not work for it. Because we use Apple's Installer the UI will match the UI of your OS so judging which updater you got by the UI of the Installer will not work.

MULTIPLE VERSIONS OF DIFFERENT LANGUAGES
------------------------------------
If you have multiple language versions of Office on your machine, then you'll want to put the one you wish to update in your Application folder; update it; then either rename it or move it out and put the next language in the Application folder.

The Installer will search for Office, and if the first one it finds is a different language than the updater it will not keep searching for copies with the matching language.

RESTARTING YOUR MACHINE
------------------------------------
In some instances, the temporary folder used to install the last update does not get deleted. In these instances, the next Office update cannot install – you can rectify this by restarting your machine.

Please also see the Knowledge Base Article we have at

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/help.mspx?MODE=ct&CTT=PageView&clr=99-1-0&target=bee52d73-be77-4544-a5cd-402d9b56b9f41033&srcid=&ep=8&rtype=2&pos=3&quid=dc327dd2-3f60-405a-9477-b711c349ac53

for more information.

I hope this covers most everyone's issues, and if not we are watching this forum, so please describe your situation and we will do our best to help you with INSTALLATION issues.

Jason Brown
Microsoft MacBU

April 17 2009 at 2:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jane LM

David Emery, would you mind spelling out for those of us with less of a clue, how to do step b. of the process you outlined? Where do you enter this, exactly?
Thanks.

April 16 2009 at 3:02 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jeff

> If you haven't made the leap to Office 2008 yet (perhaps you're on a PPC Mac;...)

Well, don't mention this to my PPC Mac. MSO 2008 works fine on it.

April 15 2009 at 6:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Jeff's comment
tdowling

It's been shown to be slower than Office 2004 on PPC Macs, though, so I imagine that many people would be a little hesitant to plop down the cash without trying it first.

April 15 2009 at 10:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Arnoz

Finally an Office update that doesn't need a restart, doesn't reindex Spotlight or installs even if you used Monolingual or such tools to remove languages!

April 15 2009 at 3:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
KaneBaker

I gave up on spaces. Love the idea but it screws up too many applications.
Photoshop, Final Cut sometimes looses windows to random spaces. The feature is pretty broken for now.

April 15 2009 at 11:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dan

@Michael Rose

thanks. It says "For selected text" which led me to believe it was only text that was highlighted with the cursor >.

April 15 2009 at 11:06 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dan

sorry for this off-topic question...

What program or mod are you using to get that yellow selection bar?

April 15 2009 at 10:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Dan's comment
Michael Rose

Um... System Preferences --> Appearance --> Highlight Color. In this case, Gold.

April 15 2009 at 11:02 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jwgirardot

FYI, the update didn't show up via the Mac software update tool when I used that (the iMovie update did, though). I actually had to launch Office 2008 and use the update menu item there.

April 15 2009 at 10:33 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to jwgirardot's comment
TrafficGuy

@Joe

You're not going to find updates non-Apple software in Apple's Software Update application.

April 15 2009 at 10:43 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.