Tiger: If Office 2004 now on own Apps volume, MUD on own Docs

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

3 STRATEGY CONSIDERATIONS:

In anticipation of Tiger delivery on Apr. 29, I've moved Office 2004 from
the OS 10.3.8 volume's Applications folder to a new OS-free, non-Apple Apps
volume. I've moved the Microsoft User Data folder from Users/~/Documents
to a new OS-free Documents volume (and left in its place an alias with the
word "alias" nipped off.)

When Tiger arrives, it will be installed on an empty partition, rather than
use the Panther partition. I intend to maintain my OS 10.3.8 boot volume
just in case I have problems with Tiger not playing nice with my hardware
configuration and my software.

Ideally, regardless of whether I boot into Panther or Tiger, I'd like to be
able to launch Office 2004 applications from the same OS-free Apps volume
and have the Office components use the MUD folder on the same OS-free Docs
volume.

4 QUESTIONS FOR ACCESSING OFFICE 2004 & MUD WHEN BOOT INTO TIGER OR PANTHER

1. Would Office 2004 need to be installed on my erase-and-clean installed
Tiger boot volume or could I just copy *certain files and folders* over from
my Panther boot volume and, as I did for Panther, alias Office 2004 from my
Apps partition and alias the MUD folder from my Docs partition to Tiger's
Apps folder and Users/~/Docs?

2. If I do NOT have to install Office 2004 on the Tiger volume, which files
or folders, other than MS preferences in my Users/~/Library/Preferences/
folder need to be copied from my Panther volume to my Tiger volume?

3. If I do have to install Office 2004 on the Tiger volume, would it be
feasible to then trash the Office 2004 folders/files in the Tiger
Applications folder and replace them with an alias of the Office 2004 folder
from my OS-free Apps partition?

4. As in question 3 above, would it be feasible to trash the MUD folder
Office 2004 installation would place in my Tiger/users/~/Documents folder
and replace it with an alias of the MUD folder in my OS-free Docs volume?

Thanks very much for considering these questions and for any counsel you may
share.

Respectfully, Norm Nager

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi Norm

1. Would Office 2004 need to be installed on my erase-and-clean installed
Tiger boot volume or could I just copy *certain files and folders* over from
my Panther boot volume and, as I did for Panther, alias Office 2004 from my
Apps partition and alias the MUD folder from my Docs partition to Tiger's
Apps folder and Users/~/Docs?

Office can be located on any partition.

2. If I do NOT have to install Office 2004 on the Tiger volume, which files
or folders, other than MS preferences in my Users/~/Library/Preferences/
folder need to be copied from my Panther volume to my Tiger volume?
None.

3. If I do have to install Office 2004 on the Tiger volume, would it be
feasible to then trash the Office 2004 folders/files in the Tiger
Applications folder and replace them with an alias of the Office 2004 folder
from my OS-free Apps partition?

You don't really have to alias the files. Office doesn't use .pkg
installers (using the .pkg for permissions), it doesn't provide packaged
applications (for Services for instance) so it doesn't really benefit
from being symlinked in /Applciations.

4. As in question 3 above, would it be feasible to trash the MUD folder
Office 2004 installation would place in my Tiger/users/~/Documents folder
and replace it with an alias of the MUD folder in my OS-free Docs volume?

I havent really tried moving the MUD folder outside of ~/ myself, but I
suspect an alias or a symlink on the right location could do the trick.

In similar context, I use the NetInfo Manager to setup access the same
user folder from both drives. In the context of Tiger though some prefs
for Apple apps might be incompatible with the 10.3.8 versions so I'm not
sure that would be ideal since if you regress to Panther, you might lose
access to some of these prefs.

Corentin

 

[Alan Quirt]

4. As in question 3 above, would it be feasible to trash the MUD folder
Office 2004 installation would place in my Tiger/users/~/Documents folder
and replace it with an alias of the MUD folder in my OS-free Docs volume?

On several Macs running Jaguar and Office X, I have put the MUD folder
in an OS-free Documents partition with an alias where Microsoft normally
puts the folder. In some cases I moved /Users to the documents partition
as well; in other cases I did not. Some of those systems were bootable
into OS 9, and I was able to run Outlook Express in either Classic or OS
9 using aliases into that same Documents partition.

It has all worked just fine to date for me, but as usual YMMV.