Microsoft Office won't launch from backup clone

[j]

I've made a bootable backup clone of my entire hard drive onto an
external firewire Lacie drive using SilverKeeper.

When booting from the external drive, everything seems to work fine,
except for Microsoft Office. On launch, Word bounces once in the dock
then disappears. Same for Excel (I haven't tried the others).

Is this some sort of anti-piracy measure, or have I screwed up my backup
in some way?

The whole point of having a bootable backup clone is that I could carry
on working after a hard drive failure. But this throws a spanner in the
works. Everything else seems to work as normal.

Any suggestions?

 

[Erik Richard Sørensen]

I've made a bootable backup clone of my entire hard drive onto an
external firewire Lacie drive using SilverKeeper.

When booting from the external drive, everything seems to work fine,
except for Microsoft Office. On launch, Word bounces once in the dock
then disappears. Same for Excel (I haven't tried the others).

Is this some sort of anti-piracy measure, or have I screwed up my backup
in some way?

The whole point of having a bootable backup clone is that I could carry
on working after a hard drive failure. But this throws a spanner in the
works. Everything else seems to work as normal.

I have had the same problem. - Here it turned out to be the latest
update (Microsoft Office 2008 12.2.3) that fucked it totally up. I too
launched it from another drive - it bounced and then nothing else but an
error message telling me that I had to buy a _new_ lidcense - not just a
license -, if I would continue to use the application... - And what
worse was - when I tried to launch it from my bootdisk, it was also
fucked up.:-(!

Yes, it is a sort of 'anti-piracy' that was installed along with the
latest update, - can't remember the name of that script anymore...

The only solution is to re-install the original version from the CD,
enter your license code, and download and run the updates manually
except the very latest ver. 12.2.3. Disabnle AutoUpdate, and it'll run
fine again from anyh disk.

Download these updates
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 1 (12.1.0)
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downlo...d=395D1487-A3A6-4106-A0F8-4D6E1D6D89D2#viewer
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 2 (12.2.0)
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downlo...d=300133BB-B5F7-4946-BB7B-B0C6C6D6E28C#viewer

I don't use MSOffice much anymore, but keep it just to be able to open
those nasty XML and .docx files... - Else I've totally switched to run
OpenOffice 3.2 + NisusWriter Pro...

HTH, Cheers, Erik Richard

 

[j]

I have had the same problem. - Here it turned out to be the latest
update (Microsoft Office 2008 12.2.3) that fucked it totally up.

Thanks for all that information. At least I know I'm not going mad. It
really riles me that I've paid Microsoft 70 quid for a bloated,
unpredictable, unstable, buggy heap of. I'd say 80 per cent of the time
I've spent with this software since I bought it has been involved with
sorting out problems. I wouldn't trust it with a shopping list. In
contrast, I've just spent 8 days working on a 70-page InDesign document:
the whole time, not one problem. It worked flawlessly. Rant over.

Thanks again.

 

[John McGhie]

This is an issue with "Bootable clones" that affects a few bits of software,
Microsoft Office is one of them.

The issue is that you have copied the PREFERENCES to the backup. The Prefs
are specific to a particular computer and disk: they link all the bits
together.

You need to delete the Prefs from the clone, then launch the office
applications. They will then write a new set of Prefs dedicated to the disk
they are now on.

After that, it will be fine.

Cheers

I've made a bootable backup clone of my entire hard drive onto an
external firewire Lacie drive using SilverKeeper.

When booting from the external drive, everything seems to work fine,
except for Microsoft Office. On launch, Word bounces once in the dock
then disappears. Same for Excel (I haven't tried the others).

Is this some sort of anti-piracy measure, or have I screwed up my backup
in some way?

The whole point of having a bootable backup clone is that I could carry
on working after a hard drive failure. But this throws a spanner in the
works. Everything else seems to work as normal.

Any suggestions?

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[aRKay]

This is an issue with "Bootable clones" that affects a few bits of software,
Microsoft Office is one of them.

The issue is that you have copied the PREFERENCES to the backup. The Prefs
are specific to a particular computer and disk: they link all the bits
together.

You need to delete the Prefs from the clone, then launch the office
applications. They will then write a new set of Prefs dedicated to the disk
they are now on.

After that, it will be fine.

Cheers




This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

I am not sure who has the issue; however, it sounds like the software
that created the clone did you no favors. I have been able to run
Office 2008 from a backup hard drive that was cloned using SuperDuper.

You did not define what you used to create the clone. I suspect that
is your problem.

 

[j]

This is an issue with "Bootable clones" that affects a few bits of software,
Microsoft Office is one of them.

The issue is that you have copied the PREFERENCES to the backup. The Prefs
are specific to a particular computer and disk: they link all the bits
together.

You need to delete the Prefs from the clone, then launch the office
applications. They will then write a new set of Prefs dedicated to the disk
they are now on.

After that, it will be fine.

No luck with that. I deleted all prefs in /user/library/preferences that
began with com.microsoft. After that didn't work I tried deleting the
Microsoft folder (in the same location). Again, one bounce, then
disappears.

Am I looking in the wrong place?

 

[j]

I am not sure who has the issue; however, it sounds like the software
that created the clone did you no favors. I have been able to run
Office 2008 from a backup hard drive that was cloned using SuperDuper.

You did not define what you used to create the clone. I suspect that
is your problem.

I used SilverKeeper. I do have a trial copy of SuperDuper so maybe I'll
give that a go.

However, I can't see what SuperDuper could do differently to
SilverKeeper that would help this situation. Maybe something to do with
permissions?

 

[Erik Richard Sørensen]

This is an issue with "Bootable clones" that affects a few bits of software,
Microsoft Office is one of them.

The issue is that you have copied the PREFERENCES to the backup. The Prefs
are specific to a particular computer and disk: they link all the bits
together.

Yes, so it is on a Win-based PC, but not on a Mac - MS software doesnot
lock to hardware on a Mac.... I've copied the MSO2008 from my MacPro to
the one MDD, because I was too lazy to find the CD. Copied both the
application folder from 'Applications' and the folders from 'Documents',
'Application Support' and 'Preferences'. - Word launched nicely with all
my settings kept. - This was the ver. 12.2.0. But with the 12.2.3 it
doesn't work.

You need to delete the Prefs from the clone, then launch the office
applications. They will then write a new set of Prefs dedicated to thedisk
they are now on.

After that, it will be fine.

It should be, but this doen'st always work out that way. The prefs files
are always the first I delete, when aN App begins to behave in that way,
but it doesnot work with the ver. 12.2.3...

Cheers, Erik Richard.

 

[J.J. O'Shea]

I've made a bootable backup clone of my entire hard drive onto an
external firewire Lacie drive using SilverKeeper.

Depending on which version of SilverKeeper, that may have been a Bad
Idea(tm). Some versions of SK don't play well with clones. They're excellent
basic backup systems, but the cloning part is broken.

When booting from the external drive, everything seems to work fine,
except for Microsoft Office. On launch, Word bounces once in the dock
then disappears. Same for Excel (I haven't tried the others).

Something in the Microsoft Office folder didn't get copied properly. Delete
the entire folder and replace with the folder from the original system. If
that's not available, delete the entire folder and reinstall Office and then
update to the latest version. This will take some time, as apparently
Microsoft has not heard of the concept of 'combo updaters', and you will have
to apply each update, one at a time, in the correct order.

Is this some sort of anti-piracy measure, or have I screwed up my backup
in some way?

If you're going to do a straight-up incremental backup, SK is good, though
Time Machine is better. If you're going to do a clone, use Carbon Copy Cloner
or SuperDuper!. SD! is easier to use, CCC is more powerful.

 

[aRKay]

I used SilverKeeper. I do have a trial copy of SuperDuper so maybe I'll
give that a go.

However, I can't see what SuperDuper could do differently to
SilverKeeper that would help this situation. Maybe something to do with
permissions?

I have never heard of SilverKeeper and have no experience. I hope
you are talking about Mac stuff and not mixing PC and Mac stuff. If so
God cannot help you.

 

[J.J. O'Shea]

I used SilverKeeper. I do have a trial copy of SuperDuper so maybe I'll
give that a go.

However, I can't see what SuperDuper could do differently to
SilverKeeper that would help this situation. Maybe something to do with
permissions?

SuperDuper! is designed to clone volumes and does a very good job. SK is
designed to back up volumes and does a good job; cloning volumes is not its
strong suite.

Or at least that was how it was back when I was using it. I dropped it when
Leo arrived, and I used Time Machine instead.

 

[Erik Richard Sørensen]

I have never heard of SilverKeeper and have no experience. I hope
you are talking about Mac stuff and not mixing PC and Mac stuff. If so
God cannot help you.

SilverKeeper is a piece of LaCie software that has been around since way
back in the '90ties. I used to use it a lot, but at that time it could
not make bootalbe clones, so I bought the Synchronize! Pro instead. The
newer versions of SK can make bootable backups/clones. The version I'm
using right now is the latest ver. 2.0.2...

Cheers, Erik Richard

 

[W^3]

SuperDuper! is designed to clone volumes and does a very good job. SK is
designed to back up volumes and does a good job; cloning volumes is not its
strong suite.

Or at least that was how it was back when I was using it. I dropped it when
Leo arrived, and I used Time Machine instead.

Just tried Word 2004 from my SuperDuper created bootable clone from a
Seagate external drive; runs fine (still sucks though).

 

[John McGhie]

Yep: You can get lucky SuperDuper and CC Cloner have a pretty good
track record.

But if you try it, and it DOESN'T work, there is not much we can do other
than say "Well, don't do that, then"

Cheers

Just tried Word 2004 from my SuperDuper created bootable clone from a
Seagate external drive; runs fine (still sucks though).

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Erik Richard Sørensen]

Just tried Word 2004 from my SuperDuper created bootable clone from a
Seagate external drive; runs fine (still sucks though).

Yes, neither Word X 10.x or Word 2004 make this kind of non-working
behavior. - It's only MSO2008 that sucks and only after the update to
12.2.3...

Cheers, Erik Richard

 

[Erik Richard Sørensen]

Yep: You can get lucky SuperDuper and CC Cloner have a pretty good
track record.

But if you try it, and it DOESN'T work, there is not much we can do other
than say "Well, don't do that, then"

...Or simply stay away from the MSO 12.2.3 update... I don't use neither
SuperDuper nor CCC, but Backuplist+ 7.0 instead. It does a real fine
job, and I can boot from any of the clones I've made with it...

- At least as long as I remember to initialize the disk with the correct
partition map. - I had a big problem with one of my disks that
wouldn't boot after cloning a 10.5.8. Tried and tried and tried several
times - erased disk, new clone etc.. - I was ready to throw it out the
window here from the 11th floor, - until I got the splended idea to open
DiskUtility... At the buttom... "Partition map: MBR" Grrrrr... I forgot
I'd been using that disk on my WinXP Pro machine. Re-initializing with
APM (Apple Partition Map) and then cloned the 10.5.8 bootdisk from my
MDD again, it boots nicely and fast.

Cheers, Erik Richard