Microsoft Office 2011

[gunug]

Anyone know of a source of information about how to troubleshoot problems when Microsoft Office 2011 (Excel especially) has trouble with slow access and locking up when it's trying to load files off of a Mac 10.6 Server.  I found nonsense at Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892959

I'd like to uninstall and reinstall the Office on the iMAC that's having troubles but "someone" has lost the copy of Office 2011.  I looked at the permissions and rights on the server and I'm not seeing a problem there!

[Xairbusdriver]

Was that the version that was recently updated and created corrupted files? MS pulled and replace the updater. If that's not the version, disregard my question.

<http://blog.officeformac.com/update-to-sp2-now-available/>
<http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=29570>

[jchuzi]

That MS update affected only Outlook, not other parts of the Office 2011 suite, at least as far as I know.

[gunug]

Whatever happened the result is definitely a corrupted version of Office 2011; it won't open files and it won't allow for updates!  When you try to update it says the software isn't installed!  I've got people trying to track down the purchase order so I can prove we own it and download another copy as they've lost the original (it may have never been on an optical disk as I'm told Microsoft is doing direct downloads now!

[jchuzi]

I had a similar problem with Microsoft AutoUpdate for Office 2008 and solved it by trashing ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist. Instead of trashing the plist, you could move it to the desktop so that you can restore it easily if necessary.

[gunug]

It turns out that he had a little U.S. Robotics switch plugged in behind the desk and when I found that, bypassed it, and plugged into the wall things were a lot faster.  I'm still going to reinstall when they find the media or when they buy another copy!  We try to bring the media into our office whenever we get ahold of it and lock it in a closet but this place was operating beyond our bounds!

[Xairbusdriver]

Sounds like it's time for a 'hardware/software' policy review. Why are people allowed to run these computers with admin privileges?

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you won't be reprimanded.

[jwboyd]

Look what my daughter (a Windows user) posted today on Facebook:

"Whoever redesigned Microsoft Office and made it into version 10 sure didn't do home users any favors. I would love to have a dumbed down version of a design program. I don't need/want all the "professional" capabilities!"

[Xairbusdriver]

But... but... I thought Office was a dumbed down version of a real professional app! "Professional" apps are easy to use because the "professional" needs to get work done, not learn how to use some geek-invented idea of a program (don't forget to press the Start button to stop... ).

[jchuzi]

The only parts of the Office 2008 suite that I use are Word and Entourage. (Outlook replaces Entourage in Office 2011 but, from what I have read, it's a step backwards for my usage). My biggest gripe with Word (and this applies to previous versions as well) is that MS enables a lot of formatting features by default. I waste too much time figuring out how to turn them off. Why, oh why, can't the programmers get it through their thick skulls that not everyone wants those features? Sure, make them available, but don't force users to bang their heads against the wall when the program starts doing things that they don't want.

[kimmer]

The only decent version of slushoffice was actually Word 5.1a. Everything since then has been garbage.

And if Word 5.1a ran on my iMac under 10.6, I'd be using it.

[Xairbusdriver]

With so many Mac apps capable of reading and writing Word docs (and docx), it's easy for us to not use Office, if that's its main purpose. But are there no equivalent apps on the Windows side?