running Mac Office 2004 on Snow Leopard

R

RCM

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

Hello and good morning!

I have Office 2004 running on my Tiger iMac.

I am considering upgrading this machine to Snow Leopard.

Will Office 2004 still run on this machine after the OS is upgraded?

Thank you.
 
C

CyberTaz

Since Office 2004 runs fine on Leopard (10.5.x) it is logical to expect that
it will run on Snow Leopard (10.6) given that -- according to most reliable
sources -- 10.6 is not a radical departure from its predecessor. However,
there are no guarantees.

Nobody can give you an absolute "yes" or "no" as to "How well" it will run.
To at least some extent it may well boil down to what features you use & how
you use them.

You first have to take into consideration that Office 2004 was developed
nearly 6 years prior to the advent of Leopard (10.5) & was designed to run
on Tiger (10.4).

I sincerely do not expect Apple to extensively test legacy software
thoroughly enough to warrant any sort of comprehensive endorsement.
Likewise, it's equally unrealistic to expect Microsoft to make any sort of
iron-clad assurance that all aspects of a product developed 6 years ago will
operate flawlessly on an OS 2 generations removed from what it was designed
for.

IMHO, anyone concerned about "compatibility" would be best advised to avoid
jumping on the bandwagon. If you want to be first on the block you have to
be willing to take the risk. Otherwise, wait for others to do the testing
for you & see what reports come in. If there are any issues they may be
addressed by future updates to both SL as well as to Office 2004.

Just as an example, knowing that the last MBP I bought would ship with
10.5.0 I postponed the purchase until 10.5.1 was released. I not only
avoided the initial flaws of Leopard but also saved a few more $$$ on the
MBP :)
 
J

Jim Gordon MVP

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

Hello and good morning!

I have Office 2004 running on my Tiger iMac.

I am considering upgrading this machine to Snow Leopard.

Will Office 2004 still run on this machine after the OS is upgraded?

Thank you.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Office 2004 runs fine in Snow Leopard. I know of only one unresolved
issue, and I bet you won't encounter it.

Office 2004 requires Rosetta. When you install Snow Leopard, look
through the customization options. I recommend you choose the Rosetta
option. If you didn't install Rosetta, that's no big deal because you
will be prompted to install Rosetta anyway the first time you need it.

Snow Leopard can be booted to one of two different kernel and extensions
packages: 32-bit or 64-bit. Rosetta requires the 32-bit package, so use
the 32-bit kernel and extensions, which is the Snow Leopard default.
You would hold the 6 and 4 keys down to boot into 64-bit kernel and
extensions, but I'm told Office 2004 won't run if you do that.

Because you will be using a 32-bit kernel and extensions with Rosetta,
you can expect performance will be mostly unchanged, as that is the
setup you were using before upgrading to Snow Leopard.

-Jim
 
J

jh0lland

Jim,
Question, I'm running Office 2004 and loaded Snow Leopard, including Rosetta and now the Office apps load but when I open an existing file the contents are jumbled and mostly missing. The files when then opened in OpenOffice are fine. Reinstalled from the CD and made no difference. Any ideas? TIA.
Joe Holland
 
D

Diane Ross

Question, I'm running Office 2004 and loaded Snow Leopard, including Rosetta
and now the Office apps load but when I open an existing file the contents are
jumbled and mostly missing. The files when then opened in OpenOffice are fine.
Reinstalled from the CD and made no difference. Any ideas? TIA.
Click to expand...

Try deleting font cache files.

Quit Entourage. Delete these files in Users/[YourUserName]/Library/Caches.
Restart Entourage.

com.microsoft.browserfont.cache
tasmanbrowser.cache

If the above does not work, check for corrupt font caches. These can easily
be cleared from the system with Font Finagler. Download and run the
application. First click the "Inspect Font Cache Files" button, then the
"Clean Font Cache Files" button. You must then restart your Mac. Other
utilities that can clear your font caches are Cocktail, FontNuke and OnyX.

Be sure the utility works under Snow Leopard. Some have not been updated.
 
J

jh0lland

Diane,
Thanks for the suggestions. Results are:

1. I had no "com.microsoft.browserfont.cache" or "tasmanbrowser.cache" file anywhere on system.

2. Tried all of the suggested apps to delete font caches. None work with Snow Leopard yet.

Is there a manual or command line way to delete the appropriate files.

TIA.

Joe
 
D

Diane Ross

1. I had no "com.microsoft.browserfont.cache" or "tasmanbrowser.cache" file
anywhere on system.
Click to expand...

"/Users/YOURUSERFOLDER/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.browserfont.cache"

The tasmanbrowser.cache might be a Office 2004 file. I'm not seeing it
unless I check in my old 04 install volume.
2. Tried all of the suggested apps to delete font caches. None work with Snow
Leopard yet.
Click to expand...

The trick is to delete these BEFORE updating to Snow Leopard....do I hear
"now you tell me?" :)
Is there a manual or command line way to delete the appropriate files.
Click to expand...

Restarting fixed font issues for some users. I suggest restarting at least
twice.

Boot into safe mode using the Shift key.
Then, reboot again.
This process deletes some caches.

Font Nuke's page indicated these files: (it doesn't indicate that it's Snow
Leopard compatible yet)

What 'font cache' file(s) are removed?

/Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/* (System)
files that contain 'font cache' from ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/
(MSOffice)
~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.browserfont.cache (MSOffice)
~/Library/Caches/Tasman Browser.cache (MSOffice)
files that contain "ATSServer" from /var/tmp
AdobeFnt.lst files on the startup disk (AdobeFnt*lst, *.lst) (System/Adobe)
/Library/Fonts/font-cache* (System)
/Applications/QuarkXPress 6.x/jaws/* (Quark)
~/Library/Preferences/Quark/QuarkXPress 7.0/jaws/* (Quark)
~/Library/Caches/Adobe (Adobe general cache)

From MacOSXHints forum:

Delete the Safari cache folder. This should be in ~/Library/Caches/Safari/.
Create an empty text document and save it as 'Safari' (no extension) and
place in ~/Library/Caches/. I think just about any type of Document would
work for this, just make sure the name of the file matches the name of the
old folder, this way, a new folder can't be created by Safari when one is
needed
That's it. I haven't seen any negative results so far!

[robg adds: In the terminal, you can create this file quickly and easily by
typing:
touch ~/Library/Caches/Safari
Other options;

One user suggested this workaround in the thread Major Snow Leopard Issues:

2. As instructed I searched for duplicate fonts, but it wasn't enough to
turn them off in Font Book and reboot. I had to manually go in and remove
them. This was only for fonts in our user folders (we all had alternate
versions of courier installed). This solved the crashing issue with attached
jpgs.

3. Finally I turned off the "Display complex HTML in email messages"
preference. This fixed the crash that was happening with some email
newsletters.


Another user reported in "Microsoft Office 2008 "optimizing font menu
performance"" on the Mac-L mailing list:

Well, I found something that worked. After a fresh restart, I
temporarily moved all my fonts from /Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts
into folders on my desktop. Then, was able to get Excel 2008 to
launch. Then, I quit Excel, put everything back into /Library/Fonts,
opened Excel, quit Excel, moved everything back into ~/Library/Fonts,
launched Excel and thus far all is good.

Let me know if any of these help.
 
J

jh0lland

Diane (still waiting....

Worked my way through you very extensive list of things to try. by the way thanks for the effort. Short form, didn't solve the problem. Details below:

a. Multiple reboots, no helps
b. Didn't find any of the indicated font caches on my system
c. Deleted fonts indicated by Font Book as duplicated using Font Book. No help just spread problem to other apps. Reinstalled 10.6 & Office 2004 and got back to the same place, e.g. Office can't display a number of fonts and everything else is working.

It appears to be a font conflict of some type but I can't find a definitive list of what fonts need to be where to fix it manually. Any help would be most appreciated. TIA
Joe
 
D

Diane Ross

It appears to be a font conflict of some type but I can't find a definitive
list of what fonts need to be where to fix it manually. Any help would be most
appreciated. TIA
Click to expand...

Just posted my troubleshooting article. It lists the fonts you need to
delete in the Library/Fonts/Microsoft folder.

Troubleshooting Office for Mac with Snow Leopard

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2009/09/hot_topics_using_office_for_mac_with
_snow_leopard.html>

In case the above link does not work:

<http://tinyurl.com/ndmt4x>

BTW, I finally got my copy of Snow Leopard and did two different installs
last night. One was the upgrade and the other a clean install of both SL and
Office.

Diane
 
J

jh0lland

Diane,
Worked through the list of things to try on your Entourage Blog. Deleting the fonts out of ~/Library/Fonts that were flagged as duplicates by Font Book worked like a charm. Thank you. If you ever get to SoCal there is a beer waiting for you at the local microbrewery, Hanger 24. Take care.
Joe Holland

P.S. I'm going to cross post this on the Apple Support Forum, OK?
 
D

Diane Ross

I'm glad my article helped. Feel free to post. My goal is to get users the
info they need to fix problems themselves.
 
M

Malcolm Howells

[email protected] said:
Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

Hello and good morning!

I have Office 2004 running on my Tiger iMac.

I am considering upgrading this machine to Snow Leopard.

Will Office 2004 still run on this machine after the OS is upgraded?

Thank you.
Click to expand...
 
D

Diane Ross

Yes, but you need to deal with the duplicate fonts and font caches. Office
2004 installed all Office fonts in the ~/Library/Fonts folder. Use font book
to delete all duplicates in this folder.

Fonts to delete after installing Snow Leopard (includes help deleting font
caches)

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

A few users reported they had to re-install Office 2004 after upgrading, but
most found their installs worked correctly after dealing with the font
issue.
 
C

Catnick2

Running Font Book (OS X application) showed me the conflicting fonts, but it
was only after I found and deleted a font with an extension of .dfont was I
able to resolve the problem.
Your resolution may differ, of course, but my solution:
- I found a Lucida Grande font with .dfont extension.
- deleted the font, but could not empty the trash as the font was in use.
- restarted iMac and then emptied the trash.
- restarted machine again and was able to run MSOffice.

I hope this helps you.
 

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