MVPs: Why do 10.1.5 preferences survive after trashing 12?

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Despite removing 12 Office X 10.1.5 preferences and emptying the trash, when
I re-launch Entourage, my old preferences have survived, such as General
Preferences/Fonts. How do I get rid of the ghost of the old preferences and
return to the Entourage default preferences?

(I'm trying to deal with a font issue in which a condensed font I have not
selected in any preferences comes up when addressing Entourage email.)

These are the preferences I dumped from my personal user's Library
preferences with the trash:

Com.Microsoft.Entourage.plist
Com.Microsoft.Office Notifications.plist
Com.Microsoft.Word.plist
Microsoft/carbon registration database
Microsoft/component preferences
Microsoft/Entourage.plist
Microsoft/Entourage preferences
Microsoft/Entourage settings (10)
Microsoft/Office Font Cache
Microsoft/Office Registration Cache X
Microsoft/Office settings (10)
Microsoft/Word settings (10)

I've dumped these dozen and then logged out and back in before re-launching
Entourage. I've dumped them and then done a typical rebuild before
re-launching. But all I have to do is open the Entourage preferences and
they remain unchanged, rather than in default mode.

Am I missing any preferences to remove or any steps? Help, please.

 

[baltwo]

Despite removing 12 Office X 10.1.5 preferences and emptying the trash, when
I re-launch Entourage, my old preferences have survived, such as General
Preferences/Fonts. How do I get rid of the ghost of the old preferences and
return to the Entourage default preferences?

(I'm trying to deal with a font issue in which a condensed font I have not
selected in any preferences comes up when addressing Entourage email.)

These are the preferences I dumped from my personal user's Library
preferences with the trash:

Am I missing any preferences to remove or any steps? Help, please.

Yep. You missed the biggy at ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data. Dump
that one and you should be good to go.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Yep. You missed the biggy at ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data. Dump
that one and you should be good to go.

NOT a good idea!!!!! This would delete all your Entourage database (as
well as a bunch of other files).

I would definitively NOT follow this advice (unless you never use
Entourage and couldn't care less about all the other files you have in
there).

Corentin

 

[Diane Ross]

Despite removing 12 Office X 10.1.5 preferences and emptying the trash, when
I re-launch Entourage, my old preferences have survived, such as General
Preferences/Fonts. How do I get rid of the ghost of the old preferences and
return to the Entourage default preferences?

Use Remove Office. It will delete all your preferences.

"Remove Office" is located in the Value Pack folder on the Office X CD. If
you have Office 2001, do not use the Remover available on the CD; it isn't
current. Download the Office 2001 Remover from Mactopia." Download Office
2001 Remover fromMactopia.

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

"Remove Office" removes both preference files and custom templates, so you
should make a backup copy of the preferences and templates in another
location on the machine before running the removal tool. See Files to
Backup.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/backup.html>

WARNING : The Remove Office tool can remove files that are installed by
Microsoft Office 98, Microsoft Office 2001 for Mac, and Office v. X,
including Microsoft shared libraries, such as Microsoft OLE, which might be
required by other programs. If a program does not start after you use the
Remove Office tool, try reinstalling the program to fix the problem.

 

[Mickey Stevens]

Use Remove Office. It will delete all your preferences.

But many of the preferences from Entourage are stored in one's identity
folder (which is not touched by the Remove Office tool), and those are the
ones Norman wants to delete. Norman, my suggestion would be to go to
Entourage -> Switch Identity, create a new identity, and then go to
Preferences and write down whatever settings you want to transfer over.