12.1.5 update - unable to update it

[Al Bergstein]

Ok. I¹ve tried everything. I have a legal, registered copy of 12.1.0,
running on a Macbook Pro running OS X 10.5.6, but try as I might I cannot
update to 12.1.5. The update process, after downloading this massive Œpatch¹
fails to find a legal copy of my software! (I am writing this on Entourage,
which crashed once already during writing this), I have looked at all the
possible Œworkarounds¹ on the web, including uninstalling the whole package
and reinstalling, running numerous disk utilities to Œfix¹ my hard disk (no
other application on my drive is having these problems), and then
downloading the patch again.

Other users are complaining about this problem, there are web pages devoted
to Œsolving¹ it.

If you would like to look at my machine, I work down the street from you,
look me up in the GAL. I can bring my machine in so you can see it
yourselves.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Ok. I've tried everything.

[...]
Out opf curiosity, is the application installed straight in
/Applications or is it on another location (mostly: on another drive or
partition)

If you would like to look at my machine, I work down the street from you,
look me up in the GAL. I can bring my machine in so you can see it
yourselves.

You live down the street from me?? Are you sure?? ;-)
You are you addressing this to?? If it is to MS (and you live in
Redmond), you have to be aware that this is a public peer-support forum
and that MS doesn't usually post here...

Corentin

 

[hedrick]

Here's a more radical version of an approach someone else suggested. You probably don't want to do this if you don't have at least some Unix skills. It removes the code that tries to find your current version of office and check the version. It hardcodes the path. Since it no longer checks for the version, make sure you're starting with a version to which the update applies:

Once you've mounted the .dmg file, look at it and copy the mkpg file to a location on your disk
Edit the file .../...Update.mpkg/Contents/Resources/volume_updatable
in that file, comment out the find_office and office_updatable sections. To
comment something out, put # at
the beginning of the line. Replace the line setting office_app_folder with
the actual location of your office app folder. That's the one line that isn't
commented out. Of course you should use the actual location on your system,
which may possibly not be /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/, although
it probably is.
Here's what the this section of code should look like. Make sure
you see the one line in the middle that isn't commented:

#process=Popen3([find_office_exe, target_volume, _kMinVersion, _kMaxVersion], False)
#status=process.wait()
#if (status!=0):
# sys.exit(-1) #
#office_app_folder=process.fromchild.read().rstrip('\n')
office_app_folder = "/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/"
#
#process=Popen3([office_updatable_exe, target_volume, office_app_folder], False)
#status=process.wait()
#if (status!=0):
# sys.exit(-1) #

Now run installer pointing it to the mpkg file with target / (this assumes Office is on your main
volume)
Here's what you should type, of course the -pkg argument should be the actual location of
the .mpkg file on your system:

installer -pkg /Users/hedrick/Desktop/Office\ 2008\ 12.1.5\ Update.mpkg -target /

Here's the output:

installer: Package name is Office 2008 12.1.5 Update
installer: Upgrading at base path /
installer: The upgrade was successful.

Microsoft: please fix your upgrade process!

 

[Diane Ross]

Microsoft: please fix your upgrade process!

You are talking to your peers here. Send feedback to Microsoft.

When working in Office, you can use the ³Send Feedback² option under the
Help menu in all of the Office applications or visit

<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/suggestions.mspx>