Downloaded and installed it. Installation was smooth and quick, and atleast Word opens noticeably quicker (haven't tried the others yet). Good job, M$!
Have to agree. Everything seems 2x as fast. Very nice improvements.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Microsoft Office 2008 Update Brings Speed Increases and New Features
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Have to agree. Everything seems 2x as fast. Very nice improvements.
Exactly - shovel in the new crap that may or may not pan out in the long haul, but still no Macro support. Not that M$ didn't know this was going to be an issue three years ago or anything like that. Shame on you M$, your business practices continue to deteriorate.
I wouldn't be too excited if the iphone support is any indication.
Number is the joke
Yeah, just like those of $teve Job$.
You Microsoft-haters urgently need to perform a reality check: Just in case you haven't noticed it, while Microsoft is giving away yet another large update FOR FREE, Apple has charged you three times in the last three years for iWork updates. At the same time, they have charged you three times for iLife updates. And iPod Touch users have also been charged three times for FIRMWARE updates - and that in less than two years.
Oh, and Microsoft is STILL supporting old versions of Microsoft Office. Without charging for it.
Entourage, SP2, and Live/ Hotmail
Installed the SP2 update. Entourage encourages me to swap my (previously paid-for) Hotmail link-up over to POP3. I do so. Now I can no longer see my folders - as I find is actually acknowledged over on the Microsoft support site. So my upgrade is a downgrade. Thanks a bundle, M$!!! Now, how do I get my Live payment back...?
Installed the SP2 update. Entourage encourages me to swap my (previously paid-for) Hotmail link-up over to POP3. I do so. Now I can no longer see my folders - as I find is actually acknowledged over on the Microsoft support site. So my upgrade is a downgrade. Thanks a bundle, M$!!! Now, how do I get my Live payment back...?
Well I downloaded and installed SP2 on my Santa Rosa MB Pro and don't really notice any kind of speed differences. I never had any kind of slowness, although I only really use Word and Entourage. This update is no big deal to me and I will continue to use Mac BU products for all my work needs. iWork just doesn't cut it.
For Winni
You failed to account for a couple of details:
- Cost of MS office vs. Cost of iWork/iLife (even combined they are cheaper than Office)
- These "major updates" you are referring to happen all the time for free from Apple, the only difference is that usually Apple sells a product that works to begin with and then refines it. MS on the other end sells a crappy product and takes them 1 year to get it somewhat usable.
- The new versions of iLife and iWork that are for purchase have major improvements and changes and make sense, they are not just mere attempts of making the software work correctly.
If you start with a product that works then you can invest your resources in adding new features. MS starts with a product that does not work and invests resources in attempting to get it to work.
You failed to account for a couple of details:
- Cost of MS office vs. Cost of iWork/iLife (even combined they are cheaper than Office)
- These "major updates" you are referring to happen all the time for free from Apple, the only difference is that usually Apple sells a product that works to begin with and then refines it. MS on the other end sells a crappy product and takes them 1 year to get it somewhat usable.
- The new versions of iLife and iWork that are for purchase have major improvements and changes and make sense, they are not just mere attempts of making the software work correctly.
If you start with a product that works then you can invest your resources in adding new features. MS starts with a product that does not work and invests resources in attempting to get it to work.
Ive installed the Office 2008 for Mac update (SP 2) today.. but after the update.. the software ask me for a new key...??
so i guess the old is not working no more,...:-(
You were either using an illegal copy with someone else's Key, or others are using your Key causing activation failure.
Not impressed!
Sorry, still not impressed!
Running an '09 Mac Pro Quad 2.66 with 8GB RAM I got a 25 second count from a CPU restart... After opening and closing the application, then opening it up again, it was 5 seconds...
I can still open Word documents using Pages at a MUCH faster rate... Cold or warm start!
Sickening!
Sorry, still not impressed!
Running an '09 Mac Pro Quad 2.66 with 8GB RAM I got a 25 second count from a CPU restart... After opening and closing the application, then opening it up again, it was 5 seconds...
I can still open Word documents using Pages at a MUCH faster rate... Cold or warm start!
Sickening!
Updates != upgrades and service packs aren't an upgrade, it's a major update.
Apple never charges for any updates. They are almost always free and same for Microsoft. Nobody is better than each other in that area.
There was no three iWork updates that had a price, they were all three upgrade versions, not same thing as an update. It does not matter if the upgrade could be an update instead in such that they don't bring in a lot of new features.
People don't have to pay for the upgrades if the price isn't justified for them. They'll happily wait for the next upgrade. There's hundred of thousands of Tiger users that never updated to Leopard. Same for iWork, iLife, and iPod firmwares.
Apple always release free minor updates for iWork and iLife over the software updates. So does MS with service packs. Same for minor updates for iPod and iPhone.
Other then speed improvements, this Office:mac 2008 SP2 update doesn't justify an upgrade for $100+. It should've been there in the first place.
The firmware upgrades for iPod touch, as far as I am aware has only been two, 2.x and 3.x. They did not charge for 1.0.x as every iPod Touch came with it. It's like having a computer, two new OS came out, you still have to pay for each version. Those iPod users do not have to pay for them, they can keep the old versions.
MS has to support old versions, MS has a large market of old users that don't update to new version, too many people to just drop support. Apple does not have that problem. They can keep dropping old versions and move on. MS makes majority of the money on the business customers, which actually pay for the technical support.
Just put that next to your mobile me claim that apple knocked out of the park last year
I look at these charges for incremental service packs as donations to the church of $t£v£ Job$. It's a worthy cause. M$ is evil, Apple is not. End of story.
I actually wish Apple would add a donate section on their website where I can send them a percentage of my earnings each month. Just for those months when they have no new products or services to sell me.
You're right, we knew that VBA was going to be an issue quite awhile ago. That's why we announced that it wouldn't be a part of Office 2008 back at WWDC 2006, and one of our senior developers wrote a blog post about the technical challenges in getting the VBA code ported from PPC to Intel: saying goodbye to Visual Basic. It's also why we improved our AppleScript support in Office 2008, and worked with MacTech magazine to publish a VBA to AppleScript transition guide for those users who would be able to move their VBA scripts into AppleScript (and we knew that not all users would be able to do that, since they're using those scripts cross-platform). And finally, it's why we announced a year ago that it will be back in the next version of Office, and that senior developer wrote a new blog post about bringing it back: saying hello (again) to Visual Basic. It's pretty rare to announce a feature for an application that doesn't have a name or ship date, but we did it because we know how important it is to some of our users.
VBA is powerful stuff. Getting that code working right on the Mac is a huge chunk of work. This isn't the kind of thing that we can do overnight, and we're making sure that what the VBA support we deliver in the next release is rock-solid.
Regards,
Nadyne.
Our normal release cycle is 2-3 years. Office 2008 wasn't a normal release due to the Intel switch, not to mention the massive code changes that we had already planned before having to switch processors and development environments: new file formats, a new graphics engine, etc. I don't have an exact date to share yet, so I'll just say that Office 2008 came out in January 2008.
Office 10? That was Office v.X, which we released for OS X a few years ago. Office 2008 is Office 12, Entourage for Web Services is Office 13, so the next version is Office 14.
We are not going to release the next versions of Windows Office and Office:Mac simultaneously. We're on different development cycles.
You quoted the support lifecycle for business and developer products. Office:Mac 2004 is a consumer product, so we're following the support lifecycle for that. We'll have some more details to share for VBA users in a couple of months. I honestly don't know more than that -- I'm on the technical team, so stuff like that is far outside what I work on.
Soon.
I wrote a blog post to Mac Mojo, the MacBU team blog, about this: evolution at work.
You should do a custom installation to not install the pieces that you don't want. To get around this in the short-term, you can install Messenger to the Office 2008 folder.
You need to get a legitimate key for Office 2008. You can purchase a copy of Office 2008 at your friendly local Apple Store, or online from a site like Amazon.
The most likely causes of the installation not working are:
1. You have moved the Office 2008 folder out of Applications. Move it back, and try the update again.
2. You have manually deleted something in the Office 2008 folder. You're going to have to uninstall and reinstall. When you reinstall, do a custom install so that you don't install the pieces you don't need.
3. You have run an app like Xslimmer or Monolingual. You'll also have to uninstall and reinstall, do a custom install to save the few MB that the language files take up, and then make sure that you exclude the Office folder if you run one of these apps again.
4. Your key isn't legitimate. Get a legitimate product key from your friendly local Apple Store, Amazon, or wherever else you buy software from. Then delete these two files:
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist
When you launch an Office app again, it will ask you to enter your key. It's printed on the back of the DVD sleeve. (And be careful reading it: the B and 8 are kinda hard to tell apart.)
Regards,
Nadyne.
Nadyne, I have an unrelated question. Is there a chance of Office coming to the iPhone? Since the iPhone is based on OSX I'd figure the MacBU would have some serious input. BTW good job on the update.
definitely faster
It now takes one second from clicking the Word icon for the program to come up. Before the update, it was about 10 seconds. Same with Excel. Not that 10 seconds is a lifetime or anything, but it's a nice improvement and a noticeable one.
It now takes one second from clicking the Word icon for the program to come up. Before the update, it was about 10 seconds. Same with Excel. Not that 10 seconds is a lifetime or anything, but it's a nice improvement and a noticeable one.
Can't update
Hmm. I can't get it installed. After examining "additional volumes" my bot drive isn't installable (stop sign with exclamation mark). The message displayed is:
You cannot install Office 2008 12.1.9 Update on this volume. A version of the software required to install this update was not found on this volume.
Strangely enough, I was able to update to the last 11.x.x from last month with no problem. Any ideas?
Hmm. I can't get it installed. After examining "additional volumes" my bot drive isn't installable (stop sign with exclamation mark). The message displayed is:
You cannot install Office 2008 12.1.9 Update on this volume. A version of the software required to install this update was not found on this volume.
Strangely enough, I was able to update to the last 11.x.x from last month with no problem. Any ideas?
Starting from a cold start is slightly faster here on my Mac Pro.
However, scrolling larger documents in Word is significantly faster for me.
The same holds true with Excel and PowerPoint, they both start slightly faster from a cold start and once started show significantly improved performance overall.
M$ has scored +1 on this update as far as I'm concerned. However, there is still much to be done to make Office 08 a complete product equal to Office 07 on the PC. Lets hope that M$ expedites the completion of this work.
However, scrolling larger documents in Word is significantly faster for me.
The same holds true with Excel and PowerPoint, they both start slightly faster from a cold start and once started show significantly improved performance overall.
M$ has scored +1 on this update as far as I'm concerned. However, there is still much to be done to make Office 08 a complete product equal to Office 07 on the PC. Lets hope that M$ expedites the completion of this work.