Problem with OS X 10.5 and Office 2004

[Meku]

I did Mac OS X 10.5 clean install on my Mac. After installing and
updating Office 2004 I have trouble opening the office applications.
The application itself opens just fine but I can't see the actual
documents at all.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Meku,

Can you expand on "can't see the actual documents" a little? How do you
try and what happens? Same problem with both opening existing documents
and using cmd-N or File | New to create a new one? Nothing shows up
under the Window menu?

 

[Meku]

Hi Meku,

Can you expand on "can't see the actual documents" a little? How do you
try and what happens? Same problem with both opening existing documents
and using cmd-N or File | New to create a new one? Nothing shows up
under the Window menu?

Under the Window menu I see the document name but if I select it
nothing happens. This is happens with new and old documents. The
document window is "just" missing.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Under the Window menu I see the document name but if I select it
nothing happens. This is happens with new and old documents. The
document window is "just" missing.

Okay, much more clear. It sounds like they might be off-screen somewhere.

Try this--go into System Preferences, Displays, and change the
resolution to something crazy. This should force all the windows to
rearrange themselves and hopefully bring the windows back where you can
see them. Does it?

If it does, move them to somewhere logical and indisputably on your
screen, and hope they stay there when you change the resolution back.
Actually, don't just move them, but also type and delete some dummy
text--the object here is to force the document to re-save and remember
the location.

There's also an extended screen option in the OS--if Sys Prefs Displays
offers you the chance, turn this off and turn mirror monitors on. (it
should only be available if you have a projector or monitor hooked up,
but I don't know OS X.5 at all)

If that doesn't work--which Office applications are you seeing this in?

 

[Meku]

Hi!

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately changing the resolution
didn't "reveal" the document window. However, if straight after
booting my Mac I start one of the Office programs I can see the
document window but for some strange reason the window disappears
after a short period of time (5-10 min.) with only Safari, Apple Mail
application and one of the Office (I've installed Excel, Word and
PowerPoint) applications running. If I then try to start any of the
office applications I can't see the application window.

 

[Meku]

Does this happen in a new user account?

I created a new user and fortunately I the document window did stick
and didn't just vanish in few minutes. So after that I went to my
regular admin account and tried tracking the Office plist files but
couldn't find any. What are the Office plist file names? One could
assume that the preference files are corrupted or then there is a
possibility that something is interfering with Office. The only
culprit that I can think of is Adobe Acrobat Pro plugs but I have
already disabled them so they are not loading with Office.

 

[John McGhie]

See here: http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DamagedPrefs.html


On 5/11/07 10:23 PM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "Meku" <[email protected]>
wrote:

Does this happen in a new user account?

I created a new user and fortunately I the document window did stick
and didn't just vanish in few minutes. So after that I went to my
regular admin account and tried tracking the Office plist files but
couldn't find any. What are the Office plist file names? One could
assume that the preference files are corrupted or then there is a
possibility that something is interfering with Office. The only
culprit that I can think of is Adobe Acrobat Pro plugs but I have
already disabled them so they are not loading with Office.




--
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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]

 

[Meku]

Unfortunately deleting all the prefs and plist files didn't do it.
Anyway, thanks for trying to help!

 

[Meku]

I tried uninstalling and re-installing the Office applications but
that didn't solve anything.

 

[John McGhie]

You ran the Office Remover tool?

Reinstalling has no effect unless you have first run the Office Remover
tool.

Hope this helps


On 6/11/07 6:43 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "Meku" <[email protected]>
wrote:

I tried uninstalling and re-installing the Office applications but
that didn't solve anything.


--
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]

 

[Meku]

You ran the Office Remover tool?

Yes I did. In some way its funny that MacBook that is my "fun/testbed"
Mac I did plain OS X upgrade and its working fine but the MacBook Pro
that I use to do some of my real work I did clean install and that one
is suffering from missing document window symptom.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I tried uninstalling and re-installing the Office applications but
that didn't solve anything.

Just by the way--since the problem only occurs in one user account, and
not in a new clean user account, that's pretty much a sign that the
installation itself is fine. A damaged installation would show problems
in all user accounts. So remove and reinstall is unlikely to have an effect.

Have you tried holding down shift while you login to your user account?
This stops all login items from loading and lets you test whether a
background utility might be causing a three-way conflict with Leopard
and Office.

You might just have to migrate your settings and data to the user
account that behaves, however.

I'd try basic OS X maintenance type things, as well.

 

[John McGhie]

OK, I have asked the developers for you.

Given that they are a tad busy with "Office 2008" they may not get time to
answer.

It may be best to simply migrate to a new User ID.

Sorry...


On 6/11/07 9:13 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "Meku" <[email protected]>
wrote:

You ran the Office Remover tool?

Yes I did. In some way its funny that MacBook that is my "fun/testbed"
Mac I did plain OS X upgrade and its working fine but the MacBook Pro
that I use to do some of my real work I did clean install and that one
is suffering from missing document window symptom.


--
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]

 

[Diane]

Unfortunately deleting all the prefs and plist files didn't do it.
Anyway, thanks for trying to help!

When you tested in a new User, did you do so with a new database? There are
some preferences that are stored in the database so it's possible that your
database needs to be rebuilt. You can test your database by dragging it to
your Shared folder. Log out/in to your new User and drag the Microsoft User
Data folder from shared (it will be copied) to the Documents folder. Does it
happen now?

Don't forget to move the Microsoft User Data folder back to your regular
Documents folder.

 

[John McGhie]

One of our guys has this comment:

I've noticed a similar behaviour with Spaces. Word 2004 is set to launch in
a space of its own (along with other word processors and Office
applications). If Word is open and I'm in a different space, I can open a
Word file and the focus will not always automatically be on the space with
Word in it; instead, I get the focus on Word and I can see the standard
toolbar, but I cannot see the document itself. In order to view the
document, I need to switch manually to the space which I use for Word.

Hope it helps


On 6/11/07 9:13 AM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "Meku" <[email protected]>
wrote:

You ran the Office Remover tool?

Yes I did. In some way its funny that MacBook that is my "fun/testbed"
Mac I did plain OS X upgrade and its working fine but the MacBook Pro
that I use to do some of my real work I did clean install and that one
is suffering from missing document window symptom.


--
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]

 

[Meku]

Thank you for all your comments and suggestions you've been wonderful!
Fortunately I finally managed to get Office applications working in my
normal user account. The problem is not directly the Office 2004 but
the combination of that and .Mac sync. The new .Mac sync is big on
syncing everything between different Mac's including preferences. It
seems that this preference sync is far from being intelligent (at
least it seems like that) but more like a raw dump. The multitude of
possible hardware software combinations that are possible even in Mac
environment seems to be too diverse especially if you are mixing
different operating system versions (10.4.x - 10.5 which I wasn't) in
order to get the preferences transfer reliably done between the Mac's
and applications. I would recommend disabling the "Preference" sync
feature on .Mac until applications are updated at least ones for
Leopard compatibility.

The missing document window in Office isn't unique bug. I had same
problem with Google Earth. In order to get it fixed you need to get
heavy on preference deleting. All the User preference files must (if
you have gone syncing them with .Mac) after that everything is back to
normal and the preference files created will be stable. I tried
removing preference files one by one but eventually gave up since
nothing but complete preference wipe didn't cut it. It is possible
that there is a single rogue preference file that is causing it but
since the preference file isn't actually the preference file linked to
the application that is suffering it is hard to find the culprit.

Anyway, Office 2004 is working now fine with stable document window
and so is the Google Earth which had more severe problems with
application windows.

So, one should be very careful with .Mac preference sync since it
seems to cause corrupted preferences in some setups (in my case
upgraded 10.5 and clean installed 10.5, in which upgraded was working
fine). Waiting for that 10.5.1 update from Apple.

 

[Meku]

if you are mixing
different operating system versions (10.4.x - 10.5 which I wasn't) in
order to get the preferences transfer reliably done between the Mac's
and applications.

Well, I was not thinking very clearly since in 10.4.x preference
syncing isn't possible. Anyway, it seems that preference syncing
between upgraded and clean installed 10.5 can cause problems.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Thanks for putting all this useful information out there for the
archives! With luck, it will help someone else with a similar problem.

 

[John McGhie]

Yeah. A useful warning.

Basically, some of those preferences are completely machine-dependant. If
you copy them to a different machine, most of the time the bad ones will be
ignored or corrected. But there are some that can't be.

The software will attempt to honour them, and fail if it can't.

Cheers

if you are mixing
different operating system versions (10.4.x - 10.5 which I wasn't) in
order to get the preferences transfer reliably done between the Mac's
and applications.

Well, I was not thinking very clearly since in 10.4.x preference
syncing isn't possible. Anyway, it seems that preference syncing
between upgraded and clean installed 10.5 can cause problems.


--
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]