New to Entourage and getting "This identity cannot be opened withthis version of Entourage" error

C

cjbg

I've never used Entourage. I didn't even install it originally when I
installed Word/Excel/PowerPoint. But, in the process of trying to
report problems on Mactopia (on the excel forum), I found that
navigating Mactopia is a pain, and someone in the MacBU at Microsoft
suggested I use Entourage to be able to read Mactopia more easily.
(Actually, reading on microsoft.public.mac.office.excel, parallel to
where I'm posting from now, was working pretty well, but three of my
posts from Mactopia yesterday haven't shown up here OR at mactopia.
But at this point, I'm just looking for the easiest way to navigate
the stuff on mactopia's forums.)

The rest of Office was already at 12.1.0 (installed SP1 yesterday) but
of course Entourage is not. The first time I tried to use it, I got
that error message. (even trying to use the version left from the
previous version of Office, I get the same message). I don't even know
what an "identity" for the purpose of Entourage is.

Can this simply be a matter of needing to redo SP1 so that Entourage
has it too? or what else should I do to be able to use it?

Thanks for any pointers,
cjbg
 
T

Todd Barthelme

Hi

Yes you will need to fully upgrade Entourage to the same level as the rest
of the Office applications. Your Identity, where preferences and files like
downloaded emails are stored, cannot be used with an older version of Office
once a newer one has opened it. By default it is in Documents in a folder
called Microsoft User Data if you're curious. Once Entourage is at 12.1 like
the others it will be able to open.

Hope this fixes the problem.
-Todd
 
C

cjbg

Thanks for the reply. I tried the simple thing, just reinstalling SP1.
Unfortunately, I get an error this time: "You cannot install Office
2008 SP1 Update (12.1.0) on this volume. A version of the software
required to install this update was not found on this volume."

So, do I have to "back out" of SP1 somehow? or reinstall everything
from scratch? What's worse is that while Excel with SP1 is working,
Word is not; the first time I tried Word after installing SP1 I got
"The application Microsoft Word quit unexpectedly" (and some other
stuff about relaunching).

Thanks for any pointers. At least I still have Office X around and can
do some work until I get this fixed!'
cjbg
 
D

Diane Ross

This problem can also be caused by a modification of the Office files.

If you ran a language pack utility to save disk space this could cause the
updater to fail.

Examples of items that will prevent upgrade:
Monolingual
Safari fix

To correct this issue, drag the Microsoft Office 2008 folder to the Trash,
and then reinstall Office 2008 from your original installation disk. This
should allow you to update.
 
C

cjbg

PROBLEM SOLVED, I think.

As you were replying, I was doing just that (after several attempts
that still had problems). Following suggestions on
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office/browse_frm/thread/c0a04c1d5d04168f#
("You cannot install Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.0.1 Update on
this volume" over on microsoft.public.mac.office) I stepwise went
further and further back in reinstalling things, until I actually
tossed all the Office 2008 stuff in the trash and reinstalled from
scratch and then did the SP1 over again (I even got error messages
about a database being out of sync or something with 12.0.0, which I
hadn't gotten when I first installed it a month ago. Go figure. Oh,
and somewhere in the middle of all of this NONE of my Office apps
would open, not just Word.) However, now everything starts up,
including Entourage, and no error messages. Now I'm ready to get back
to finding more Excel bugs for Pat :)

If this had not worked, per that other thread's recommendation, I was
ready to back out even further and re-apply the Mac OSX combo update.
But I think I'm ok now so won't bother doing that.

(FWIW, I had not run any language pack utilities; I *had* added
Entourage after updating to SP1, and then all heck broke loose when I
tried to do SP1 again-which failed, and then tried to run any of my
apps.)

Thanks for helping me get back on track.
cjbg
 
D

Diane Ross

cjbg said:
reinstalled from
scratch and then did the SP1 over again (I even got error messages
about a database being out of sync or something with 12.0.0, which I
hadn't gotten when I first installed it a month ago. Go figure.
Click to expand...

That's because there was a change to database and it was upgraded in SP1.
Previous versions in Entourage 2008 will not open it once it's upgraded.
There was a similar change in Entourage 2004 after the RTM.
(FWIW, I had not run any language pack utilities; I *had* added
Entourage after updating to SP1, and then all heck broke loose when I
tried to do SP1 again-which failed, and then tried to run any of my
apps.)
Click to expand...

Another good argument not to install the full package.
Thanks for helping me get back on track.
Click to expand...

Glad you got things working. I'm updating the "Update" page now to include
the other modifications not listed on the blog.
 
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