Saving installation during disk reformat and OS re-install

[hjfusmc]

I am currently assigned in Iraq and do not have install disks for my
Office X package. I am having some problems with my computer that may
be aided by re-frmatting the drive and re-installing OS X. Is there a
way I can move the appropriate files to my external hard drive
reformat/reinstall OS X and then move the files back to the appropriate
folders in the internal hard drive? I am unable to connect that
computer to the internet so any fix cannot rely on that option. Thanks
for your help.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I am currently assigned in Iraq and do not have install disks for my
Office X package.

I can imagine that in your current situation that might not be something
easy to find :-|

I am having some problems with my computer that may
be aided by re-frmatting the drive and re-installing OS X.

Ouch... you have all my sympathy. That can be tedious (especially if you
don't have access to the Net to download all the System updates after
that :-\ ).

Is there a
way I can move the appropriate files to my external hard drive
reformat/reinstall OS X and then move the files back to the appropriate
folders in the internal hard drive?

More or less everything Office X needs is located in the Microsoft
Office X folder. Even the fonts are there and should reinstall
themselves in ~/Library/Fonts the first time you launch Office on your
new setup.
Even the serialization should be carried over.

Make sure you copy everything to an HFS+ drive (no windows or Unix
format).

The only thing I'd be worried about are potential permission issues.
If you *really* want to be safe, you could use the ditto command in the
Terminal to make sure all permissions remain the same:

sudo ditto -rsrc /Applications/Microsoft\Office\ X <destination
directory>


sudo makes sure you are authentified as Super User to copy the files -
permissions should be preserved - the -rsrc option makes sure both data
and resource forks are properly coppied (man ditto for more info). It
might be overkill, but it's safe... If you are not familiar with the
Terminal and if you are the only user of the Mac (meaning: you don't
care about permissions issue for other users), you can probably skip
this altogether and perform a normal copy through the Finder.


Be safe over there,

Corentin