Office 2004 will not install on MacBook Pro

[Patrick]

Hi,

I would be grateful for some help from any expert in the group.

I have just bought a new MacBook Pro 17 inch. I have run Remove Office
several times and tried to install my legitimate copy of MS Office:mac
2004 from disc. Each time I run Remove it tells me that there are
files in Preferences. I select Remove and Empty Trash. I have also
checked the Preferences folders and removed any Microsoft files
manually. I have secure emptied the trash. And this just repeats...

Every time I launch the installer it whirrs for a few seconds then
quits. No amount of double clicking will restartt it. A drag and drop
installation of the entire folder installs components but then no
Office application will launch.

Short of re-formatting the disk I don't know what to do. I would be
REALLY grateful for advice.

Many thanks.

Patrick

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

I assume you have run Repair Permissions?

Boot from your OS X installation CD and run Disk Utility. Choose the Repair
Permissions option.

Then boot from the hard disk and run the Office Remover (yet again...)

Then perform a drag-and-drop install of Office 2004. The Installer will not
run properly on an Intel Mac.

Just out of interest, did you run the "Migration" tool to bring stuff over
from an older Mac? I have a growing feeling that for some reason that is
getting things into a knot on some Intel machines.

Hope this helps

Hi,

I would be grateful for some help from any expert in the group.

I have just bought a new MacBook Pro 17 inch. I have run Remove Office
several times and tried to install my legitimate copy of MS Office:mac
2004 from disc. Each time I run Remove it tells me that there are
files in Preferences. I select Remove and Empty Trash. I have also
checked the Preferences folders and removed any Microsoft files
manually. I have secure emptied the trash. And this just repeats...

Every time I launch the installer it whirrs for a few seconds then
quits. No amount of double clicking will restartt it. A drag and drop
installation of the entire folder installs components but then no
Office application will launch.

Short of re-formatting the disk I don't know what to do. I would be
REALLY grateful for advice.

Many thanks.

Patrick

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Boot from your OS X installation CD and run Disk Utility. Choose the Repair
Permissions option.

That's only partially a good idea.
If you boot from the CD, the permissions are repaired based on the
packages in /Library/Packages *on the CD*.

If you still can boot on the drive, it's always a much better idea to
repair Permissions with DiskUtility from there since it will then use
the /Library/Packages folder from the hard drive with all the new
versions of .pkg as well as the .pkg from thirs party applications.

DiskUtility on the CD is great for repairing Directory damages
though.....


Corentin

 

[Paddy Tomkins]

I have removed the Test Run, repaired permisions, wiped free space,
used the drag and drop
installation, updated with latest MS Office update and STILL none of
the Office 2004 applications will launch. A double click gets the
usual expanding icon then nothing. No request for the key, no icon in
the Dock, nothing. I've tried with my original and authentic disc
that I used perfectly on my old G4 17" and the original and authentic
Student and Teacher edition (with two licenses remaining on it) that
has happily installed on my daughter's 15.4" MBP. Short of
reformatting the whole disk I don't know where to go with this. Any
ideas will be gratefully received.

Paddy

 

[Diane Ross]

I have removed the Test Run

There have been numerous problems reported on problems resulting from the
Test Drive not being properly removed.

If you search the Microsoft KB articles you will find:

1. You may need to run the Remove Office application more than once.
2. "Successfully Removed" is not always true.
3. Problems can occur using the installer. The installer cannot overwrite
certain files. Use the drag-and-drop method of installation.

You can try to manually remove Office and then reinstall and update. I would
also apply the combo updater first. Doing so overwrites potentially
problem-causing files.


Mac OS X 10.4.8 Combo Update (Intel)


<http://wsidecar.apple.com/cgi-bin/nph-reg3rdpty2.pl/product=11797&cat=1&pla
tform=osx&method=sa/MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.8Intel.dmg>




See How to Manually Remove Office v. X for Mac from Your Computer....also
applies to Office 2004

<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323675/en-us>

Sadly it might be quicker to wipe your drive and reinstall your software.
This issue truly ranks up in the top Microsoft crap list.

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>

 

[Paddy Tomkins]

Well, I'm really grateful for all the ideas and offers of help. This
is a great indication of the kindness of many people in sharing their
expertise. Regrettably, however, none of it worked.

No end of Removing, Repairing Permissions, Wiping Unused Space,
Installing Updates, Re-installing and all that millarkey made the damn
machine budge. So, as it's a new machine and not yet fully set-up I
went for the ultimate option and wiped the whole disk (five times), did
a clean install of Mac OS X 10.8 and bundled software (without the MS
Office Test Run), updated through Apple Software Update, performed a
drag and drop installation from my MS Office Student & Teacher disk,
downloaded and installed MS Office update 11.3.3, THEN launched my
first Office app (Word). Phew! Everything worked a treat and continues
to do so.

Personally I don't believe a lot of theories about Intel Macs and
Migration tool. Significantly, MS Office installed first time and
without a hitch (using the installer) on my daughter's MacBook Pro
15.4" and this was bought before MS Office Test Run was included in the
bundle. In my view the flaw lies full square with Test Run and the
inadequacies of the Remove tool in getting to all files.

Good luck to everyone wrestling with this issue and thanks again for
the support.

Paddy

 

[Diane Ross]

Well, I'm really grateful for all the ideas and offers of help. This
is a great indication of the kindness of many people in sharing their
expertise. Regrettably, however, none of it worked.

Thanks for the feedback! I've added your fix to the list of troubleshooting
install issues.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/install.html#troubleshoot>

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Paddy:

Thanks for getting back to us: that's a useful data point.

Yes: So many of these problems appear to have the Office Test Drive as one
of their components. Regrettably, there is a stony silence from both
Microsoft and Apple as to what, exactly, the problem is.

We know it's not entirely Apple's fault, because it doesn't happen if the
Test Drive has not been there.

We know it's not entirely Microsoft's fault, because Office 2004 works if
it's installed correctly.

Both companies by now would know exactly what the problem is. But they're
not telling us, and that sux!!

Cheers

Well, I'm really grateful for all the ideas and offers of help. This
is a great indication of the kindness of many people in sharing their
expertise. Regrettably, however, none of it worked.

No end of Removing, Repairing Permissions, Wiping Unused Space,
Installing Updates, Re-installing and all that millarkey made the damn
machine budge. So, as it's a new machine and not yet fully set-up I
went for the ultimate option and wiped the whole disk (five times), did
a clean install of Mac OS X 10.8 and bundled software (without the MS
Office Test Run), updated through Apple Software Update, performed a
drag and drop installation from my MS Office Student & Teacher disk,
downloaded and installed MS Office update 11.3.3, THEN launched my
first Office app (Word). Phew! Everything worked a treat and continues
to do so.

Personally I don't believe a lot of theories about Intel Macs and
Migration tool. Significantly, MS Office installed first time and
without a hitch (using the installer) on my daughter's MacBook Pro
15.4" and this was bought before MS Office Test Run was included in the
bundle. In my view the flaw lies full square with Test Run and the
inadequacies of the Remove tool in getting to all files.

Good luck to everyone wrestling with this issue and thanks again for
the support.

Paddy

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410