RND(tech)

Microsoft recently release Office 2008 for Mac and since the original release, several updates have come out. They can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx

Office 2008 SP1 is 12.1.0, but updates 12.1.1 and 12.1.2 are also available now. Each of these three updates has given me problems from the actual installer, straight through to actually opening some applications. The most famous of which is that Word won't start and it keeps bouncing back to the "user experience" wizard and then straight Microsoft AutoUpdate checks. Ironic.

First off, if you've used a program like Monolingual to remove the PowerPC binaries, stop right here, remove your Office 2008 folder from Applications and reinstall. Also, make sure you're installing to the default /Applications folder. Don't rename the folder, don't try and modify the installation.

Next, have your CD key ready (you'll need it at the end):

- Reboot the computer

- find any pre-Office 2008 Normal templates. These are just called "Normal" and have no file extension.

- find the 2008 Normal template and delete it. It should be in your user folder under
~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/

- Remove the following folders and files
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (10)
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (11)
~/Library/Preferences/com.Microsoft.Word.plist
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008

- Reboot and attempt the 12.1.0 (SP1) Update

- Reboot and attempt the 12.1.1 Update

- Reboot and attempt the 12.1.2 Update

- Reboot and start Word. Office should now ask for your CD key and user information.

I HAD to reboot in between updates. If I didn't, the installer for each update said it couldn't find the existing software to update. I'm not sure what happens on reboots, but I'm almost sure it has to do with caches in OS X. Also, I downloaded each of the installers from the Microsoft website. I didn't use the AutoUpdate. I'm sure it'll work just fine now that I've cleared all of my preferences, but we'll see.