Significant issues with Office 2008 and Snow Leopard

[Bphilly]

Version: 2008
Processor: Intel

Hello,

Australian user, purchased and installed Snow Leopard this morning (it's 1pm on the 28th).

I've got a few major issues with Office 2008:

- Installs fine from the media (Office 2008 SP0 / 12.0.0)

- Upon launching any Office app, I'm told the database is corrupted. The Database Assistant is unable to repair the issue (or more to the point, it rebuilds 'successfully' but does not remedy the issue).

- SP2 will *not* install. It appears to not recognize any OS beyond 10.5, which would be an unusual and poorly designed aspect of the update.

- Office 2008 cannot find any updates.

So I'm in a situation where I cannot fix the Office 2008 database, cannot install any updates, and am quite unsure of how to fix this issue or whether a patch will be shortly forthcoming from Microsoft.

Can anyone suggest a workaround for this issue?

 

[Diane Ross]

- Upon launching any Office app, I'm told the database is corrupted. The
Database Assistant is unable to repair the issue (or more to the point, it
rebuilds 'successfully' but does not remedy the issue).

- SP2 will *not* install. It appears to not recognize any OS beyond 10.5,
which would be an unusual and poorly designed aspect of the update.

- Office 2008 cannot find any updates.

All of these issues also were known under Leopard.

You can try moving the Microsoft User Data folder to the desktop and let
Entourage create a new Microsoft User Data folder and a new Identity to see
if the corrupted database message goes away, but until you update Office to
at least SP2 your Identity will not open.

Depending on when you purchased Office you might need to update to 12.1.0
SP1 before upgrading to SP2.

Did you restart after installing before trying to update. If not, you
encountered the locked temp folder.

The receipts in Library/Receipts might be confusing the AutoUpdater into
thinking you are updated. Did you try downloading from Mactopia?

FWIW, I have no experience installing Office on Snow Leopard so can't tell
you what gotchas there might be.

 

[Diane Ross]

but until you update Office to
at least SP2 your Identity will not open.

That should have been sp1. Sorry

 

[Bphilly]

Hi Diane,

Thanks for the response.

I'll follow up on your suggestion immediately, but would point out that I did not install Entourage at all. Would this impact upon the database issue?

 

[Bphilly]

Follow up:

- Removing the old Microsoft User Data folder did indeed fix the Database error message. Thanks Diane!

- Rebooting did not help Office find new updates - it is still reporting no updates as available.

- Running the SP2 (12.2.0) update doesn't work - the local HD with OSX 10.6 and Office 2008 installed has the exclamation mark indicating it's not supported.

I'm going to try installing SP1 now, but earlier topics suggesting that the SP2 update doesn't recognize OSes above 10.5 seems to be true. If that is the case, it is disappointingly poor coding from such a big company as Microsoft.

So as it stands, it seems that installing Office updates on Snow Leopard is indeed a problem right now.

 

[Diane Ross]

I'll follow up on your suggestion immediately, but would point out that I did
not install Entourage at all. Would this impact upon the database issue?

Since Entourage and the database in your Identity folder are tied together,
how did you expect the database to work without Entourage? Regardless never
leave out any of the Office applications. They take up very little room and
can result in failure to update.

 

[Diane Ross]

- Rebooting did not help Office find new updates - it is still reporting no
updates as available.

Did you manually remove the packages in Library/Receipts?

- Running the SP2 (12.2.0) update doesn't work - the local HD with OSX 10.6
and Office 2008 installed has the exclamation mark indicating it's not
supported.

But, do you have sp1 installed? This error of not finding a supported OS has
plagued a few users, and I'm not sure what the fix is for it.

I'm going to try installing SP1 now, but earlier topics suggesting that the
SP2 update doesn't recognize OSes above 10.5 seems to be true. If that is the
case, it is disappointingly poor coding from such a big company as Microsoft.

Other people are running it so how do you say your experience is a bug and
not something specific to your install?

 

[Bphilly]

Hello Diane,

In relation to your last point, I'd question how a clean install of 10.6 followed by a clean install of Office 2008 will create unique conditions of any note. But I of course acknowledge the possibility of such unique conditions, even if the chances of such are close to 0.

Perhaps others are running it fine but given the fact that 10.6 hasn't become officially available in either the EU or US yet, and developers are under an NDA, I wonder how you can be so certain.

I trust software developers, and if they give me the option to not install a feature I'll never use I will assume it is perfectly safe to not install it. If Entourage is essential to Office 2008 working correctly, I trust Microsoft to make that clear.

Finally, the reality is that SP2 will not install on 12.0.0, on OSX 10.6. It doesn't give me any actionable instructions either - not even a simple message such as 'unsupported OS' or 'install SP1 first'. I have no bias or agenda against Microsoft, but how could you say this isn't bad coding??

 

[GregB]

While researching potential issues with Office 2008 and Snow Leopard, I found a couple of people who said you needed to install Office 2008 with Rosetta (even though it says it wasn't required) in order to get Microsoft Updater to run properly and update all of the apps. You might want to try that if you haven't found a solution already.

- Greg

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Bphilly;

Finally, the reality is that SP2 will not install on 12.0.0, on OSX 10.6. It
doesn't give me any actionable instructions either - not even a simple message
such as 'unsupported OS' or 'install SP1 first'. I have no bias or agenda
against Microsoft, but how could you say this isn't bad coding??

Actually, the full reality is that 12.2.0 (SP2) won't install on 12.0.0 in
Tiger or Leopard, either. It requires 12.1.0 (SP1) or later to be in place
first. System requirements for updates are always specified on the download
page. It's the responsibility of the user to determine that those
requirements are met. The sole responsibility of the Installer is to see
whether proper conditions exist -- a simple pass/fail -- not to report back
as to what might need to be done to make things right... after all, it's an
*Installer*, not a diagnostician

BTW: Even if the Installer can be considered an example of "bad coding" it
might be a criticism better aimed at Apple -- it's their Installer app.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[cotedan]

Yup same problem here. Did CLEAN install of Leopard (e.g., erased disk) and
reinstalled Office 2008. Getting database error too, and repairing database
does not take away update error.

So, I cannot update Office 2008 from a fresh install of Snow Leopard and a
fresh install of Office 2008.

Anyboby else????

 

[codywilliams]

Although I got my Snow Leopard in the mail as of yesterday, perhaps I will be waiting a little longer than expected before I upgrade my Leopard...

 

[mightywong]

I'm having issues with getting SP1 to install, too. I installed 10.6 as an
upgrade install and Office was running fine. I saw there was an update to
Office, so I went to run AutoUpdate but it said it couldn't find it (and I
couldn't find it by searching my machine). So I reinstalled Office (12.0.0)
and ran AutoUpdate but when it tries to install SP1, it tells me there's not
a valid version of Office to update.

So now I'm entirely locked out of Office because it won't launch unless
you've got SP1 installed.

Need some help ASAP.

 

[mightywong]

And just FYI, I did try rebooting and trashing my Office receipts
(Library/Receipts). No dice.

 

[Diane Ross]

The MAU requires Rosetta. Do you have Rosetta installed?

When I get my copy of Snow Leopard I'll try doing a clean install to see if
I can verify this.

 

[veda]

Hi together,
here, the same problem. Did upgrade to SL and install Office 2008. Have the
database error and cannot install any update for Office (not SP1 and not SP2).
I would be grateful for suggestions.
Thanks.

 

[mightywong]

I do have Rosetta installed.

I played around with this last night and finally got SP1 to install after
running the Remove Office app and then installing MS Office cleanly.

But now I'm having the problem that everyone else seems to be having. Namely
that SP2 will not install. It just says that and error occurred and the
installation failed and I should contact the manufacturer.

 

[mightywong]

Although, strangely enough, another coworker here was able to install SP2
from Office 12.1.6. But I can't install SP2 from 12.1.0. So maybe if MS
re-released some of the incremental upgrades, we could at least inch towards
a solution.

 

[mightywong]

Okay... I tried installing each incremental update from 12.1.1 to 12.1.5, but
I still get the same problem of failure when trying to update to SP2.

Is 12.1.6 or 12.1.7 available only as trial software? Because I've watched
someone update to 12.2.0 from 12.1.6 (trial software), but there's no updater
to get to 12.1.6.

My difficulty is that I'm in a corporate environment, so I don't have access
to the product and activation keys to just download the trial and register
that copy and update from there. I can only update what I get off the
corporate installer (12.0.0) which has the PID and AID codes embedded in it.

 

[Diskdude]

So just to sum up...

After 6 days discussion, numerous theories with limited success, we are no closer to a solution to the fact that the Office update fails on MacOX 10.6.

When is somebody from Apple or MS going to at least admit that it doesn't work and star working to fix it?

Regards