Filed under: Software
Microsoft Office 2008 & 2004 updated
The productivity suites for Mac from Microsoft, past and present, received a patch this week to resolve security issues and improve performance. While the 2004 version only got the security patches, the 2008 update, to version 12.2.3, boasts the following fixes to all apps in the suite:- Security is improved. This update fixes vulnerabilities in Office 2008 that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. For more information, see the security bulletin that is listed earlier in this document.
- Stability is improved. This update fixes an issue that causes Office 2008 applications to close unexpectedly when you open or use Office 2008 applications.
- Windows Office documents to which metafiles are attached now contain the correct text spacing when they are opened in Office 2008 for Mac. This update fixes text spacing issues that occur when you use Office 2008 for Mac to open a Windows Office document to which an OLE object or a metafile is attached.
While my experience is probably idiosyncratic, I did have a rather nasty sequence of events after updating my home machine to the new Office version: my Entourage database went belly-up and had to be rebuilt. Once the rebuild was done and Entourage was relaunched, more badness ensued; due to a yet-to-be-isolated issue, all of the mail, contacts and calendar entries in my connected Exchange 2003 account went poof and had to be restored from a backup. Not my best day ever.
I'm inclined to believe that this snafu was specific to my bloated database file and my Exchange config, and not something likely to hit most users... nevertheless, you might consider backing up your Office 2008 Identities folder (which contains your Entourage mail & PIM data) prior to the update.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
JasonL said 12:24PM on 11-12-2009
Too bad Office 2008 updates don't work for me. There's a bug where if you download the trial and then later purchase and install an older version of 2008, it won't let you update back to the point of the trial version number (it updates incrementally. so unfortunately, there's not way to jump to this latest version). And yes, prior to installing the paid version, I've tried every possible means of removing the original trial.
It's mental that I paid a hefty chunk of change for this product yet haven't been able to update to the last couple versions.
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LenB said 12:41PM on 11-12-2009
JasonL try going to your user/Library/Preferences and delete all the com.microsoft files as well as the Microsoft folder. MS Mac tech support had me do this for another reason and it does nothing to negatively impact the program, but it may remove the trial reg info.
To TUAW - this update dropped Mon or Tue and you are just now reporting on it? Really?
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Freeze said 12:50PM on 11-12-2009
Does this fix the issue where you can't save a file to your disk because there isn't "enough space"? This is really annoying because I would have thought 250gb would be enough! :P
This only seems to be on .doc files and saving as .docx is fine but I can't always use the new format because office users are reaaallly slow adopters to new versions.
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Dean Baird said 1:50PM on 11-12-2009
AFAIK, it dropped today. Maybe today is the first time my updater checked.
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smak said 12:57PM on 11-12-2009
Call me when the ribbon interface makes it over to the Mac. Thanks.
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John.B said 11:06AM on 11-25-2009
>> "Call me when the ribbon interface makes it over to the Mac. Thanks."
IMO, the best feature of Office 2008 is that it *doesn't* have the ribbon in Office 2007.
At work I'm stuck with the Office 2007 ribbon and six months later I still can't find stuff when I go looking for it. At least with menus you can go spelunking through to find what you need. With the ribbon, if you don't know where to look then you don't know where to look. There are buttons, buttons with dropdowns, buttons with lists, buttons with submenus... Sheesh, what a mess!
benknudsen said 1:04PM on 11-12-2009
Well, it completely screwed my Entourage. I have yet to find out how. Right now it crashes within one second after launch.
Thank you, Microsoft, for services rendered. Again.
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bob macqueen said 5:00PM on 11-12-2009
Woke this morning - birthday as well! - to find all my mail had gone awol. Also contacts and addresses in Entourage. Luckily have time machine so managed to find them, well hidden! I knew it was a bad idea to have something from Microsoft on my Mac, definitely no dual boot going to be allowed here.
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Victor said 1:17PM on 11-12-2009
now if only they'd release a damn data analysis toolpak so i can do my homework. that'd be great. or maybe you'd like to let me open powerpoints with embedded videos. diaf microsoft. diaf.
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Colin S. said 1:33PM on 11-12-2009
Not having the analysis pack frickin' kills me.
michas_pi said 2:32PM on 11-12-2009
http://www.analystsoft.com/en/products/statplusmac/
Prepare to spend a hundred or more dollars.
The free version has a few functions like one-way ANOVA and basic regression.
Nate said 2:22PM on 11-12-2009
So does this update the MLA format to the new MLA 7? Playing with the sources is a nightmare right now.
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crandallcrute said 1:53PM on 11-12-2009
As a rule - I NEVER update Entourage until long after the Update is released. I've had just too many bad experiences with their updates crashing my system.
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Martin said 2:18PM on 11-12-2009
This just doesn't work for me. Installer hangs every time.
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Matt said 3:14PM on 11-12-2009
The update went on OK, and my Entourage database is still intact, but the "passel of bug fixes for the (relatively) new Microsoft Document Connection for Mac utility" didn't fix it. It still doesn't work at all for me. It crashes whenever I try to open an Sharepoint connection
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rNOT said 5:24PM on 11-12-2009
No problems with 2008.
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Izzy said 3:41PM on 11-12-2009
My Entourage crashes about every 30 minutes after the update.
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Chris said 3:45PM on 11-12-2009
Still no fix for the Spaces issue...very irritating.
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Michael Rose said 4:16PM on 11-12-2009
Chris, the Spaces issue is fixed in Mac OS X 10.6 --
http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2009/08/28/on-being-less-spacey/
If you're running 10.5 or on PPC hardware, not sure what to tell you; it is an OS-side issue.
ben said 4:17PM on 11-12-2009
The Spaces issue had to do with the toolbox using Carbon and Carbon not working with Spaces. There's no way for Microsoft to fix it. Apple fixed it in Snow Leopard.