Microsoft Updates Office 2008 and Office 2004

[SnowLeopard2008]

That sucks with the spaces thing- I was looking forward to that working out. You know, spaces works so much bettter with illustrator CS2, which runs under rosetta and was written before the idea of spaces existed. Microsoft coulnd't fix it after three patches?

As for everyone upset about the half gig updates, isn't the half gig figure the gross addition and the net after deleting files from the last patch much less? The entire app folder is less than a gig for me now, and I've applied all three or four updates.

that was my point, same with me too. I think they just have faulty software to calculate the size of the uodate.

 

[Shadow]

David,

Another quick question - since Microsoft Messenger:Mac is part of the MacBU and Office 2008, when are we going to see video and audio capabilities? This was posted on the MacBU blog nearly a year ago, saying it will get rolled out this year. We're up to version 7 (which I thought was meant to include A/V, but only rolled out for the corporate version) and still no signs.

Agreed. It's getting beyond a joke now, both aMSN and Mercury Messenger have A/V support along with winks and a lot of the other Live Messenger features that Messenger:Mac doesn't have. Not everyone can afford an Office Communications Server (or whatever it's called).

Out of all the instant messaging applications out there, I really do think Windows Live Messenger/Messenger:Mac is the best. It has the nicest and slickest interface, and the display picture locations and GUI are ideal and functional.

I'm just sick of waiting for this!

I agree. The interface for Messenger:Mac is really nice and I'd love to use it but I just can't if it doesn't integrate with Growl, have A/V support etc. Have you tried using Adium lately? It's surprisingly good and you can customize the interface as much as you like. At this point I'm wondering if I should ever switch to Messenger:Mac (when/if it gets A/V support) full-time because Adium is awesome.

 

[kolax]

I agree. The interface for Messenger:Mac is really nice and I'd love to use it but I just can't if it doesn't integrate with Growl, have A/V support etc. Have you tried using Adium lately? It's surprisingly good and you can customize the interface as much as you like. At this point I'm wondering if I should ever switch to Messenger:Mac (when/if it gets A/V support) full-time because Adium is awesome.

I went through a period where I used Adium (was a while ago), but I couldn't customise the interface to something I liked. If there was a skin that replicated Messenger:Mac then I'd definitely use it.

I'm also a fan of having individual chat windows rather than tabs. I press CMD+H to hide them, and then CMD+TAB to switch back to them all. Mind you, I never really have more than 3 conversations at once.

 

[peterdevries]

@DavidPelton

Hi David,

Good to see someone from MacBU helping out here. Thanks for that.

This is a long shot but here goes: can you give me a reason why my 2.2 C2D MacBook Pro 4 GB Ram and 100 GB free on the HD has problems with a 60.000 row spreadsheet in office 2008 (examples: it takes 15 minutes to load and crashes when filtering, The ribbon takes three seconds to expand) while my CoreDuo 1.6 Thinkpad running XP with 1 GB Ram and 10 GB free on the HD is 4 times as fast?

Or more generally asked:
Is there a performance issue in excel and is work being done on this?

Quite frankly I'm very disappointed that I have to work on a lower-spec machine to get a simple 60.000 row spreadsheet to work.

It would be great if you could shed some light on this, as I'm not the only one experiencing these problems.

Thanks a lot and best regards,

Peter

 

[schnable]

Hold on while I get on my soapbox...
In 2006 when I switched from a PC to Mac it was because my machine was eternally unstable, the OS drove me nuts and a host of other reasons but basically it all boiled down to function not form. I decided to get a MacPro so I wouldn't have to author a post like yours for 5 years or more. Sure the cost was steep but no matter whether you get a MB Air, a Mini or a MacPro it's all got the same wonderful OS just what kind of hardware you want wrapped around it. In real estate it's all about location, location, location. IMHO, unless you have money to burn, buying any computer is about being able to perform needed tasks in an acceptable timeframe for as long as possible before deciding the machine has reached a tipping point and a new one is needed. The bottom line is that nothing says future-proofing like a MacPro. And, with 1T drives now on sale in my area for $159 and my 500GB drives bursting at the seams, I'll be doubling my HD capacity in the near future.

What a joke. Leopard hard freezes on me every two weeks, at least. Windows XP SP2, which I work real hard at work (multiple VMs, multiple instances of Visual Studio) is quantifiably more stable. I like OSX, and of course use it, but stable it is not.

 

[kolax]

What a joke. Leopard hard freezes on me every two weeks, at least. Windows XP SP2, which I work real hard at work (multiple VMs, multiple instances of Visual Studio) is quantifiably more stable. I like OSX, and of course use it, but stable it is not.

This is going to get a bit off topic, but clarify what is causing it not to be stable? What crashes are happening?

Leopard (10.5.4) is extremely stable for me. Possibly the most stable OS I've ever used. Rarely crashes, and very good performance.

If you are having serious issues, create a post in the OS X forum defining what is happening, and we'll try help you.

 

[G-Force]

Hmm... I don't agree with Messenger's interface being good. In my opinion it's way to bloated and clunky (takes up too much space for a messenger application) and the 'Send' button is too big. Also, a drawer to show avatars? Give me a break... The interface for Messenger needs to be completely redone from scratch and should be slimmed down. And there should at least be an option for tabbed messaging.

Don't get me wrong, I respect your opinion. But the current interface is wrong in so many aspects if you ask me.

Microsoft, take a look at iChat or Yahoo Messenger, that are great interfaces (also looking amazing) for a messenger application. I would use iChat if it supported MSN, but it doesn't.

Well, back ontopic. The update installed fine on my MacBook. Word is indeed a bit faster.

 

[idsoftware]

I have installed this update into my macbookpro.. and works like a charm... I also noticed an like error to a database or something similar. but now runs just fine. thanks people.

but sometimes I prefer Apple options like Iwork, and Ilife...

nothing is perfect!


ID Software

 

[Cheffy Dave]

Good to know, and thanks for that. Yes, "weighs in" is a very good way of describing it. The update is downloading just now, quite fully occupying my MBP and taking the best part of half an hour to do so. It has just struck me, looking at the details of this update, that this thing takes up a little over twice the whole HDD of my first computer, back in the very early 1990s. This update "weighs in" at 160 mb; my antique had 80mb, and ran a much more primitive (but not at all ineffective) version of MS Office, perfectly adequate for its day. A clock speed of 33mhz also crosses my mind. Hilariously, (in hindsight,) I also remember being introduced to the first desktop to have 1 GB in that entire section of our university, and the awed shiver which greeted it from staff and students alike. The date for that was mid 1990s. Has anyone else fond memories of computing antiquity? Cheers.

Good Lord! Half Hour?? You on dial up, mine took 3 min

 

[Cheffy Dave]

What a joke. Leopard hard freezes on me every two weeks, at least. Windows XP SP2, which I work real hard at work (multiple VMs, multiple instances of Visual Studio) is quantifiably more stable. I like OSX, and of course use it, but stable it is not.

I have yet to have ANY problems with Leopard, zero, zip, nada ,not one. And that's with Photoshop,HDR, as well as multiple spreadsheets for my business.
Maybe it's the 4 GB of Ram?

 

[SFStateStudent]

Mac Office 2008 Update 12.1.2

Just downloaded the Microsoft Office: Mac 2008 Update 12.1.2, went pretty smooth.

 

[kaiwai]

David,

Do you need to install all the previous updates, or is 12.1.2 a combo update? I reinstalled OS X recently, and haven't got round to updating Office 2008. I don't fancy having to download 3 separate updates.

Install Office 2008

Install Service Pack 1

Install 12.1.1

Install 12.1.2

Install it in that order - and no other. Don't think you can avoid installing it in that order.

 

[KingYaba]

Downloaded the installer from Microsoft's website. Update went smooth.

 

[bov]

And I got the dreaded:

You cannot install Office 2008 12.1.2 Update on this volume. A version of the software required to install this update was not found on this volume.

AGAIN! Legal copy and this s@#t! Any ideas?

Anyone find a solultion to this yet? I tried deleting those 2 lines from the package contents but that didnt work

 

[rockos]

just did a complete reinstall of osx and all programs... installed office now downloading and trying it install microsoft office update 12.1.0 It downloaded but the installer is just stuck at the begginig just says running autoupdate installer script...but is not moving...been 10 min. any suggestions.

 

[kolax]

Hmm... I don't agree with Messenger's interface being good. In my opinion it's way to bloated and clunky (takes up too much space for a messenger application) and the 'Send' button is too big. Also, a drawer to show avatars? Give me a break... The interface for Messenger needs to be completely redone from scratch and should be slimmed down. And there should at least be an option for tabbed messaging.

Don't get me wrong, I respect your opinion. But the current interface is wrong in so many aspects if you ask me.

Microsoft, take a look at iChat or Yahoo Messenger, that are great interfaces (also looking amazing) for a messenger application. I would use iChat if it supported MSN, but it doesn't.

Bloated and clunky? I prefer it - I'm all for sleekness, but I hate the iChat chat windows. They are just too simple and plain.

I much prefer MSN Messenger to iChat. And you can also hide the tool bar in MSN Messenger if you wanted (hiding Invite, Block buttons etc).

 

[James17]

Bloated and clunky? I prefer it - I'm all for sleekness, but I hate the iChat chat windows. They are just too simple and plain.


I much prefer MSN Messenger to iChat. And you can also hide the tool bar in MSN Messenger if you wanted (hiding Invite, Block buttons etc).

I don't have a problem with the interfaces of MSN Messenger and Yahoo for mac but they seem so "stripped" compared to their windows counterparts. Yahoo is still quite buggy on mac and new releases are very slow, it uses well over 100MB RAM when the latest version for windows with more features (9.0) uses around 50MB at most and it takes a while to open compared to the windows version. MSN Messenger for mac is stable in terms of memory- it only uses around 30MB which is great but I have frequent issues trying to add some contacts and it gives me an error but if I go on Windows Live Messenger and add them it works fine. They are both "inferior" compared to the Windows versions in my opinion. It is unfortunate that the developers are prioritizing windows as per usual.

 

[Luke1robb]

Office 2009?

And +1 on Office being rewritten in Cocoa as a 64 bit application. Something that better be done for the next release of Office (2009?).

Do you or anyone have any info on Office 2009? Will there be an Office 2009 for Mac or no? I ask because I am considering buying Office 2008 for Mac, but I'm not sure if I should wait and buy 2009. Any advice is much appreciated.

 

[nadyne]

Do you or anyone have any info on Office 2009? Will there be an Office 2009 for Mac or no? I ask because I am considering buying Office 2008 for Mac, but I'm not sure if I should wait and buy 2009. Any advice is much appreciated.

We're actively working on the next version of Office right now. Historically, we've been on a release cycle of roughly 2-3 years. The Office 2008 cycle was much longer than anticipated due to the Intel transition. We're planning on getting back to that usual cycle. Office 2008 came out at Macworld Expo 2008, so you're pretty safe.

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[Luke1robb]

We're actively working on the next version of Office right now. Historically, we've been on a release cycle of roughly 2-3 years. The Office 2008 cycle was much longer than anticipated due to the Intel transition. We're planning on getting back to that usual cycle. Office 2008 came out at Macworld Expo 2008, so you're pretty safe.

Regards,
Nadyne.

So, I didn't pick up the answer from your post.... should I wait for Office 2009 at Macworld or buy Office 2008 now and be set for a couple of years? Also, what's with the "we're" language? You work for Microsoft? BTW, I actually just started using OpenOffice 3.0 for Mac and it is amazing.... just like Office! I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good alternative or not wanting to spend $150 on Office.

 

[nadyne]

So, I didn't pick up the answer from your post.... should I wait for Office 2009 at Macworld or buy Office 2008 now and be set for a couple of years?

We're planning on a 2-3 year release cycle, and we're ten months into it right now (since Office 2008 was released in January 2008). So if you assume the lower bound, 24-10=14 months is the earliest for the next release. I wouldn't look for another version of Office to be released at Macworld Expo in January 2009.

Also, what's with the "we're" language? You work for Microsoft?

Check the signature ...

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[Luke1robb]

We're planning on a 2-3 year release cycle, and we're ten months into it right now (since Office 2008 was released in January 2008). So if you assume the lower bound, 24-10=14 months is the earliest for the next release. I wouldn't look for another version of Office to be released at Macworld Expo in January 2009.



Check the signature ...

Regards,
Nadyne.

I appreciate the feedback, so you mean Macworld 2010 right? Cuz 14 months would put us at 2010. I don't mean to be a stickler, just want to clarify. I've also heard some complaints about Office 2008 for Mac... are there fixes in the making to help with these complaints? Should we expect to see updates that bring the Mac version much closer to the Windows version?

 

[nadyne]

I appreciate the feedback, so you mean Macworld 2010 right? Cuz 14 months would put us at 2010. I don't mean to be a stickler, just want to clarify. I've also heard some complaints about Office 2008 for Mac... are there fixes in the making to help with these complaints? Should we expect to see updates that bring the Mac version much closer to the Windows version?

We don't have an exact date to share yet for the future of Office. Assuming a 2-3 year release cycle, and that Office 2008 was released at Macworld Expo 2008, the earliest that you'd see the next version would be in early 2010.

We've been consistently making improvements to performance and reliability, and continue to do so to address customer pain points. We're currently at 12.1.4. Is there something in particular you're concerned about, or is this just a general concern?

I can't comment on what kind of features might be coming in future service packs or versions of Office.

Regards,
Nadyne.