Microsoft Word (or any other Office app) won't open after software update

[aloraine]

Hello,

I'm having a problem with my install of MS Office 2004. (OS is Tiger
10.4.9)

When I double-click a Word (or any other MS Office doc) I get the
following error message:

"The operation could not be completed.
An unexpected error occurred (error code -10660)"

When I double-click an application icon, it bounces a couple of times,
but the application doesn't launch.

This happened after I ran an MS software update. (I think it was 11.5)

I tried un-installing MS Office 2004 using the Remove Office utility,
but the utility won't launch. None of the other Office programs launch
either - including Remote Desktop, Excel, etc. I tried dragging Libary/
Preferences to the Desktop, but that didn't help. I ran Disk Utility,
but the problem persists. I made a new user account, and that had the
same problem. This pretty much exhausts all the solutions I could find
on various newsgroups.

I would happily switch to OpenOffice or something similar, but I need
to use a bibliography management tool when I write (EndNote), and it
only works w/ MS Word, so far as I know.

Any advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated!

-Ann

 

[George]

Hi Ann,
Have you tried a clean install? You need to drag the MS folder from your
application folder to the trash. Also drag MS Preferences to the trash from
the user preference folder. Be sure to delete the trash - then run the
install again.
Regards,
George

 

[CyberTaz]

First of all, use your Office disk & see if you can run the Remove Office
Utility from there. If you can, follow the instructions you'll find here:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=890889

If Remove Office still will not run post back with more specific detail
about your Mac, what you did with Disk Utility (it's a suite of tools - some
of which do nothing - and you didn't specify which you actually used). Have
you previously had Test Drive installed?

BTW - Contrary to other opinions, dragging stuff to the Trash usually is not
the suggested way to go about resolving issues with Office & often causes
more harm than good

 

[little_creature]

Hello George,
you bad boy - I'm just thinking what this will cost you!!! (I knew I
shouldn't have told you my nick) I will not go with you to apple store
I will go there on Saturday on my own.

Do not delete office by dragging them into trash you need run that
remove office application which sit in the office folder on your Mac
HDD otherwise nothing will work properly.

Anyway stick here if you will have trouble to setup your PC-Mac
network or I can do that for you when I'm with you.

 

[geo.hayhurst]

Hello little_creature,
I think Ann tried the un-installer but it did not work.
See U soon
George

 

[david]

Hi...I had the same problem, and installing the "combo updater" for OS
X 10.4.10 got my MS Office programs running again. It is available
at:

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/

 

[little_creature]

Hello little_creature,
I think Ann tried the un-installer but it did not work.
See U soon
George

Hello Ann,
further to what CyberTaz and others have said to trying to remove
office, run disk permissions and applying the OS update, the another
thing that might help could be to apply that office update again as
you have said that it happen after the Office updates, this might
indicate that the update did not process as should.

George,
good to have you in here - you got the knowledge now, what not to do
That's how we are learning - by wrong trials. Feel free to post you
questions here as you will get more complex answer than if you just
ask me, believe me, even if you think that I knew it, I do not know
everything and here are much more experienced people with a lot of
experiences. You can encourage your students to post their question
here if some Earthman with elderflower sirup will ask them next year
to do things they do not know ;-)

 

[George]

Hi,
You are probably correct about dragging MS to the trash. I had to reinstall
MS a few months ago and I called a helpline for support and they instructed
me to do just that, and it work without any problems. I had to get on with
work therefore this saved me a lot of time.
Best,
Geo

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi George -

Please understand that I wasn't directing my comments directly toward you
personally It's just that in the Mac environment deleting apps by dragging
them to the Trash *is* a quite acceptable technique - for *many* programs.
It gives most people the impression, therefore, that it is the appropriate
technique for removal of *any & all* programs, which simply is not the case.

FWIW - My "rule of thumb" is: If it's a single program that was installed by
drag "n" drop it can usually be trashed, but if it's a suite or if it was
*installed* by an installer it probably needs to be *removed* by an
uninstaller. Most programs that require an uninstall usually say so in the
documentation or during the initial install process. Problem is, by the time
we need to do so we've forgotten or never read the directions in the first
place

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[George]

Hi Bob,
No offense taken, thanks for the info
Geo

 

[John McGhie]

Hi LC:

You are starting to sound like a combination of CyberTaz and Elliott. Have
you been keeping bad company recently???

Or is there something you have forgotten to tell us??

Cheers

Hello Ann,
further to what CyberTaz and others have said to trying to remove
office, run disk permissions and applying the OS update, the another
thing that might help could be to apply that office update again as
you have said that it happen after the Office updates, this might
indicate that the update did not process as should.

George,
good to have you in here - you got the knowledge now, what not to do
That's how we are learning - by wrong trials. Feel free to post you
questions here as you will get more complex answer than if you just
ask me, believe me, even if you think that I knew it, I do not know
everything and here are much more experienced people with a lot of
experiences. You can encourage your students to post their question
here if some Earthman with elderflower sirup will ask them next year
to do things they do not know ;-)

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[little_creature]

Hi Bob,
No offense taken, thanks for the info
Geo

CyberTaz, HE cannot be offended, I tease him all the time. He is
probably still trying to put his cubicle puzzle which I have been
playing with, together. But it's completely the DESIGNER (it was him)
mistake, not my of course because I would allow the cubicles to be
removed if you cannot progress, but he has to make them fixed.

 

[little_creature]

Hello John,
Unfortunately I haven't except for my *second father* George you have
just met here. I send email to that who can make me bad suggesting
them if they want to meet and have a fun without any intention but I
haven't got any answer. Probably they do not want to have fun.

 

[CyberTaz]

CyberTaz, HE cannot be offended,

<snip>

Please don't underestimate me - with very little effort I can offend half
the people I've ever met... with *no* effort whatsoever I can offend the
other half ;-)

Seriously - George seems like a nice guy!

 

[Angela Merrill]

I'm having the EXACT same problem. I tried the uninstall and it won't
run. I then trashed the whole thing. Restarted, ran repair
permissions, restarted, then copied the entire install CD to my Hard
Drive in applications. I could not get the install program to run
that's why I did what I did. It seems to me that it happened after an
auto-update from MS.

PLEASE HELP???
I'm on intel iMac.

 

[RobertB]

Hello,

I'm having a problem with my install of MS Office 2004. (OS is Tiger
10.4.9)

When I double-click a Word (or any other MS Office doc) I get the
following error message:

"The operation could not be completed.
An unexpected error occurred (error code -10660)"

When I double-click an application icon, it bounces a couple of times,
but the application doesn't launch.

This happened after I ran an MS software update. (I think it was 11.5)

I tried un-installing MS Office 2004 using the Remove Office utility,
but the utility won't launch. None of the other Office programs launch
either - including Remote Desktop, Excel, etc. I tried dragging Libary/
Preferences to the Desktop, but that didn't help. I ran Disk Utility,
but the problem persists. I made a new user account, and that had the
same problem. This pretty much exhausts all the solutions I could find
on various newsgroups.

I would happily switch to OpenOffice or something similar, but I need
to use a bibliography management tool when I write (EndNote), and it
only works w/ MS Word, so far as I know.

Any advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated!

-Ann

Did you by any chance install the latest QuickTime update? I believe
it's 7.2. There are reports of problems with Rosetta applications
opening after the update.