Uninstalling Office 2008

[stephenc92]

Okay, so I installed Office 2011 and expected it to remove 2008 for me. It didn't.

I have tried the "remove office" tool several times but it never finds anything - it gets stuck on "locating office versions".

Is there a solution to this?

 

[roadbloc]

drag it to the trash.
job done.

 

[stephenc92]

NO. Use RemoveOffice.app. You'll find it in one of the folders inside the Microsoft Office 2008 folder.

As I mentioned in my post, I did try RemoveOffice.app. It doesn't work, it just gets stuck on "locating office versions".

 

[rdowns]

I used RemoveOffice.app. It took forever to find versions. I unmounted external drives and it worked great.

 

[spinnerlys]

Maybe this can help you to properly uninstall applications:

To manually remove an application and all associated files:

1. Launch Finder and search for the app name (hopefully unique, such as Skype)
2. You can narrow the search to specific folders or search your whole Mac
3. Searching "File Name" vs "Contents" usually provides better results.
4. Click the + button below the search term to add criteria
5. Click the "Album" drop-down and select "System files"
6. Click the "Don't include" and change to "include"
7. Sort by name, kind, date, etc. to identify components of the app, such as folders, .plist files, cache files. etc.
8. Delete all files and folders related to the app.
9. Don't empty your Trash until you've determined that everything is working OK, in case you need to restore something you deleted by accident.
10. A reboot might be necessary to completely remove some apps.

from Best way to FULLY DELETE a program?

 

[stephenc92]

Just solved it by ejecting my Boot Camp partition - it found it in seconds.

 

[MisterMe]

drag it to the trash.
job done.

Absolutely not true. The Remove Office utility is required to remove Office, whether trial version or previously installed shipping version.

 

[roadbloc]

Absolutely not true. The Remove Office utility is required to remove Office, whether trial version or previously installed shipping version.

Absolutely true. All the Remove Office app does is delete the Office 2008 folder in your app folder. None of the plist files, fonts or any other office files that are outside the office app folder are deleted.

Hardly matters, plist files and fonts are pretty small.

 

[escozul]

This sounds a bit stupid to me! What does a mac user need a "remove smth" app if all it does is erase the app folder? Shouldn't it remove all the junk files that microsoft finds so nice to put all over the place?

Also, I confirm a previous post, that unmounting the BOOTCAMP partition fixes a lot of problems as well as the slow office detection tool

 

[MisterMe]

... All the Remove Office app does is delete the Office 2008 folder in your app folder. None of the plist files, fonts or any other office files that are outside the office app folder are deleted. ...

Oh, please Although it is true that the Remove Office utility preserves user files, it is not true that all it does is to remove the Office folder. Remove Office removes the registration information for installation of interest. Everyone knows that Remove Office is required to remove installations of the demo version of Office so that you can install the shipping version. This is not the end of it. If your existing registration information is shaky, then you may find that you cannot install certain Office updates. The only way to reinstall the suite with legitimate credentials is to run Remove Office first.

 

[bwilliams1188]

Also worked for me to unmount the windows partition through disk utility. Found it in seconds after waiting 5-10 min finding nothing before unmounting it.

 

[EricNau]

RemoveOffice.app wasn't finding my versions of office, even after waiting for 10+ minutes. As was suggested in this thread, I unmounted my BootCamp partition and it worked immediately. Thanks guys.

 

[mirata]

I have the same problem. Remove office runs forever looking for the installed version, but never finds anything. And i don't have any other drives mounted. Greatly appreciate if someone has an idea about how to solve this nuisance.

thanks

 

[EricNau]

I have the same problem. Remove office runs forever looking for the installed version, but never finds anything. And i don't have any other drives mounted. Greatly appreciate if someone has an idea about how to solve this nuisance.

thanks

Have you used Parallels or BootCamp on this machine? Those drives will also interfere, and need to be unmounted using Disk Utility.

 

[Ifti]

With some apps - simply dragging the folder into trash does not perform a 'clean' uninstall, and a lot of user files and preferences are left behind. If you keep doing this, you're gonna have a lot of crap left over on the system which you dont need.

Personally, I use AppDelete - it finds the apps themselves, along with all the user preference files etc in one go - thus giving me a 'cleaner' uninstall.

 

[kumowoon1025]

Also worked for me to unmount the windows partition through disk utility. Found it in seconds after waiting 5-10 min finding nothing before unmounting it.

Or you can just ctrl-click on it in finder and eject. Saves a few seconds

 

[dianeoforegon]

We do not advise removing Office 2008 until you have used Office 2011 for some time. There are some features missing in Office 2011 and you would need to use Office 2008 to accomplish certain tasks. Outlook users have needed to import again from Entourage when their databases were corrupted. You would need to have Entourage installed in order to export as .rge if needed.

For details on removing Office see this link.
http://www.office.mvps.org/install/remove_office.html

BTW, did you remove the duplicate fonts installed by Office 2011? It's one of the biggest causes of crashes.

See Font Management for help