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Microsoft Office Update, and Visual Basic for Applications to Return

Well, in a way, I'm glad there are people who are equally as miserable as I am with Office.

I had problems with the apps not launching after quitting the stupid customer service thing, and did what someone suggested about deleting two files:

Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist
Office PID.plist

...and it worked.

Also, disabling WYSIWYG makes Word launch MUCH faster. Two bounces and it's open. So, thanks to you, guy.
 
caspartheghost said:
  • Shut down any open Office apps.
  • Run a Spotlight search for fontcachetool
  • Open the search. Make a note of the path to where it is in case you decide to move it back.
  • Move FontCacheTool into a folder somewhere else (maybe in Utilities?) called 'Moved from Office'.
  • Restart an Office 2008 app.
  • Check out the speed increase.

You might lose WYSIWYG font menus, if I remember right, but now Word boots about 3x faster.
Click to expand...

Can't you just turn this option off in the Office Preferences? It's under General in Word.

-Kevin
 
you people do realize something is only considered a "bug" when it can be reproduced over and over. MS can't fix something that occurs only on a few systems. i am having 0 problems with office since the update. so what does that mean?
 
luminol74 said:
This must be some kind of joke... SP1 hasn't addressed the expose issues at all and now since installing SP1 my MacBook runs at 100% fan/CPU. Activity Monitor can't even identify the problem, just tells me both processors are maxed out - have to close all m$ apps and put the little black laptop to sleep. Good job microsoft for flips sake.

They have at least addressed some of the scrolling and windowing issues, but when the install takes 500MBs i expect more for my hard drive space. On top of that the apps are still really sluggish...

It's just embarrassing really...
Click to expand...

hmmm....sounds like a system problem, not an office issue.
 
Word seems a little more stable when I run it, but it still takes 20-30 seconds to load the first time on my early 2008 Mac Pro 3.0Ghz 10GB RAM machine.

I really like Office 2008 except for the load time (and general flakiness). This issue kills me because I often find myself having to open up documents and make quick edits at random times.

I am disappointed. I really believed that the MBU would fix the performance issue in this release.

Oh well... at least I don't have to live in Windows most of the time where EVERYTHING is slow! Heck, I used to think that Parallels was slow until I tried Fusion and then realized that it's just Windows. Oh if only Visual Studio was a native Mac app... <grin>
 
Fix for 2008 SP1 Setup Assistant Issue

I had the same issue and this seemed to do the trick:

1. Delete the preference file ˜/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist

2. Delete /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist

3. Launch an Office program

4. Enter your name, company and product key

Enjoy! :)
 
rychencop said:
you people do realize something is only considered a "bug" when it can be reproduced over and over. MS can't fix something that occurs only on a few systems. i am having 0 problems with office since the update. so what does that mean?
Click to expand...

Well yes i agree but i've not seen a mac running office 2008 without the expose bug. Mind you most people don't notice those types of things unless they're pointed out to them. It ain't a serious issue but it does reflect badly when low-budget developers are capable of getting the simple things right that microsoft don't.
 
Strange. I went to autoupdate and it says that there isn't any update. I go to Microsoft's site and there IS one.

Mine installed fine.

Started up Entourage and it upgrade my profile and my mail. No sweat.

Started up Word and Excel and both seem to load faster (especially Word). Oddly, Entourage takes longer than either of those two memory hogs (but it did before the upgrade too).

All in all... cool! :cool:
 
j0nt said:
I had the same issue and this seemed to do the trick:

1. Delete the preference file ˜/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist

2. Launch an Office program

3. Enter your name, company and product key

Enjoy! :)
Click to expand...

Hm. I did this and it seems to be working, but when I enter in my info & product key, then click continue, nothing happens. I've clicked continue like 60 times. Nothing. No error messages, beeps, anything! It's like I never clicked continue in the first place. It just keeps flashing. If I change a number it says I have an invalid key (naturally), so I'm confused. Everything was working fine before this update.
 
Stridder44 said:
Hm. I did this and it seems to be working, but when I enter in my info & product key, then click continue, nothing happens. I've clicked continue like 60 times. Nothing. No error messages, beeps, anything! It's like I never clicked continue in the first place. It just keeps flashing. If I change a number it says I have an invalid key (naturally), so I'm confused.
Click to expand...

A number of people have reported a problem after updating to Office 2008 SP1 where the Setup Assistant launches each time and refuses to let you continue to the main app. If you are running into this problem, please help me collect some information:

a) Did you ever install the Office 2008 beta?
b) What version of Office 2008 did you have installed (12.0 or 12.0.1)?
c) Please send me the following files:
/Users/<USERNAME>/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 settings.plist
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist
d) Please send me your product key from your DVD.

PLEASE NOTE that the above files and product key contain information that can be used to identify your user registration, so if you are uncomfortable sending it you can indeed choose to not do so. If you do send it, rest assured that I'll use it only to help verify that the problem is indeed what we think it is. I do not have access to user registration information and do not need it, so I won't go looking for it.

You can send these file and information directly to me at 'erik at schwieb dot com'.

Having done so, you can then reset your product key. To do so, quit all Office 2008 apps and move both of the files from item C above to the trash. Then, launch any one Office 2008 app and you should be prompted to enter the product key (which should be either on the DVD sleeve or on the back of the Install Guide). For additional assistance, visit the Help and How-To <http://www.microsoft.com/mac/help.mspx> section of the Microsoft Web site.

Thanks,
Schwieb
MacBU Dev Lead
http://www.schwieb.com/blog
 
Stridder44 said:
Hm. I did this and it seems to be working, but when I enter in my info & product key, then click continue, nothing happens. I've clicked continue like 60 times. Nothing. No error messages, beeps, anything! It's like I never clicked continue in the first place. It just keeps flashing. If I change a number it says I have an invalid key (naturally), so I'm confused. Everything was working fine before this update.
Click to expand...

same thing here, confused
 
brian6504 said:
Microsoft was been very open about the missing the VBA support almost since they decided they had to cut the feature. It's not something they took lightly. If you (as in one) knows anything about software development it wouldn't be hard to see why. Not only did Microsoft have to move their entire build system to Xcode from Code Warrior (which is no small feat), they had to update all their code to compile with gcc. After that they had to pour over the code base to account for subtle difference on the x86 and ppc.

That's a lot of work. Then consider the fact that the VBA code was largely written in PPC assembly. There is no conversion to x86 assembly, so they have to essentially rewrite the entire VBA compiler for the x86, ignoring the fact they're moving from CFM to Mach-O. The complexity of this is enormous and no firm could pull this off in the way everyone expected.

And Office 2008 is actually built for Intel Macs. It does actually contain x86 binaries. Stop all the conspiracy theories and learn a little bit about software and sympathize with the huge burden placed on Microsoft's Mac developers.
Click to expand...

Wow, if anyone in the Mac community defended Apple this way they would be called a Fanboy.....:cool: Remember your sympathy is placed towards a multi-billion dollar company who's business model consists mostly of "software" development. Yeah, poor Microsoft, no I should say RICH Microsoft, even though they skimped on features on the Mac version of Office they still charged the customer the same $500 U.S. as they charge for the full featured Windows version. :rolleyes:
 
Schwieb said:
A number of people have reported a problem after updating to Office 2008 SP1 where the Setup Assistant launches each time and refuses to let you continue to the main app. If you are running into this problem, please help me collect some information:

a) Did you ever install the Office 2008 beta?
b) What version of Office 2008 did you have installed (12.0 or 12.0.1)?
c) Please send me the following files:
/Users/<USERNAME>/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 settings.plist
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist
d) Please send me your product key from your DVD.

PLEASE NOTE that the above files and product key contain information that can be used to identify your user registration, so if you are uncomfortable sending it you can indeed choose to not do so. If you do send it, rest assured that I'll use it only to help verify that the problem is indeed what we think it is. I do not have access to user registration information and do not need it, so I won't go looking for it.

You can send these file and information directly to me at 'erik at schwieb dot com'.

Having done so, you can then reset your product key. To do so, quit all Office 2008 apps and move both of the files from item C above to the trash. Then, launch any one Office 2008 app and you should be prompted to enter the product key (which should be either on the DVD sleeve or on the back of the Install Guide). For additional assistance, visit the Help and How-To <http://www.microsoft.com/mac/help.mspx> section of the Microsoft Web site.

Thanks,
Schwieb
MacBU Dev Lead
http://www.schwieb.com/blog
Click to expand...

1) No.
2) I was running 12.0.1.
3) In an effort to get things working again, I deleted both those files as many have suggested. Naturally, the files aren't there anymore. Please don't get me wrong, but I don't feel comfortable sending that info anyway.

While I am peeved about this, I'm also very glad to see you guys are working quickly and diligently to get things in order. Hope to see the update fixed soon.
 
j0nt said:
I had the same issue and this seemed to do the trick:

1. Delete the preference file ˜/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist

2. Delete /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist

3. Launch an Office program

4. Enter your name, company and product key

Enjoy! :)
Click to expand...

Up and running! Thanks!
 
jasonklee said:
Well, in a way, I'm glad there are people who are equally as miserable as I am with Office.

I had problems with the apps not launching after quitting the stupid customer service thing, and did what someone suggested about deleting two files:

Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist
Office PID.plist

...and it worked again.

Also, disabling WYSIWYG makes Word launch MUCH faster. Two bounces and it's open. So, thanks to you, guy.
Click to expand...

Deleting those two files worked great for me. THANKS!
 
Microsoft is a piece of ****

What a piece of **** Microsoft Word is!

I want to open ten files in a window, files named 01, 02, 03, etc. You would think Word would open them in order? Hell no! It opens them randomly. I call up Microsoft Support (hahahhaha, what a joke) and they keep me on hold for 30 minutes before telling me that Microsoft Word can't open multiple files in order.

They actually had the nerve to say that they had "never come across this problem before."

I guess MS Word for Mac is meant for 5 year olds working on book reports.

And oh yeah, 80 of all the people here can't get their updates. What a surprise. How pathetic!
 
with word 2008, spaces continues to not work, expose continues to be weird, and dual displays doesn't work right - if you have a document on the second display, it snaps it to the first display every time you try opening another program. Really..these are the big issues..but none have been resolved
 
megfilmworks said:
The tide has changed. Vista is a flop and Apple drives their Office success.
It's about time that the people with vision lead the bean counters.
Click to expand...
You wish. The tide hasn't changed at all. Vista is not a flop and Windows continues to dominate the market with 90%+ market share.
 
This is B*SH*T

"The response to MS-Office Mac 2008 has been overwhelming!"

Are you kidding?! They have been GIVING Office/Mac 2008 away for *FREE* for gosh sake! (only had to pay the shipping charge)

Microsoft was nervous because a) it hadn't been released to support the newest Intel processors and current Mac OSX release, b) Apple's iWork '08 was gaining ground -and- is an excellent alternative to MS-Office, and finally c) unless they started giving it away, people were abandoning Word and other core apps for such viable contenders as the excellent NeoOffice and iWork (Pages/Numbers/Keynote) options.

How can everyone be missing this small little detail?!
 
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