Office 2004 apps crashing on launch

[GeeMan]

I also cannot launch any Office 2004 apps apart from
Entourage.

I've tried deleting preferences from
~/library/Preferences/Microsoft.
I've deleted and re-installed both Office 2004 and the
Office for Mac v.X that I was upgrading from.
I have run OS X's "Disk Utility" and have 'rebuilt
permissions' AND 'repaired disk'. Nothing works.

Has ANYONE sucessfully installed Office 2004 on an OS X
box? It seems this problem is not locallised to just me!

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I also cannot launch any Office 2004 apps apart from
Entourage.

I've tried deleting preferences from
~/library/Preferences/Microsoft.
I've deleted and re-installed both Office 2004 and the
Office for Mac v.X that I was upgrading from.
I have run OS X's "Disk Utility" and have 'rebuilt
permissions' AND 'repaired disk'. Nothing works.

Try systematically going through the steps at

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/macoffice/office/troubleshooting.html

It's written for office v.X, but most of the steps apply. In particular,
if you "deleted" Office without using the Remove Office application, try
using the app to do it - otherwise you leave behind files that can cause
problems.

You don't mention troubleshooting your fonts - that has caused a lot of
problems with others' installations.

Has ANYONE sucessfully installed Office 2004 on an OS X
box? It seems this problem is not locallised to just me!

Thousands of people have. Remember that it's only the ones who are
having trouble that tend to post here.

 

[GeeMan]

Thanks for the link, but I had already tried all of those
steps prior to posting.

Yes, I went through the fonts, no problems there.

Now I'm at a loss as to what to do next. There's no way on
earth that I'm going to back up my system, reinitialise the
disk, reinstall the OS, copy everything back again in the
"hope" that Office will run.

Looking through the posts here and elsewhere it's clear
that there are MANY people who have the same issue. Your
premise that "thousands" have installed Office 2004
successfully suggests to me that the "hundreds" (maybe?) of
others aren't worth bothering with.

I can't believe that MS MacBU could have let such an
important application suite get out of the door without
such basic QA. I have NEVER had ANY such problems
installing and launching ANY other "mainstream"
applications (inc. Apple developer Betas).

I have logged an email support call to Microsoft. Unless
they can solve my issues in the next day or so, I shall
return the software, get my money back and strongly deter
any of my colleagues and customers from purchasing Office
2004 until an upgrade is released.


Now, where's that URL link to OpenOffice.....

;-)

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Thanks for the link, but I had already tried all of those
steps prior to posting.

Yes, I went through the fonts, no problems there.

Now I'm at a loss as to what to do next. There's no way on
earth that I'm going to back up my system, reinitialise the
disk, reinstall the OS, copy everything back again in the
"hope" that Office will run.

Don't blame you for feeling that way. You didn't say whether you'd tried
using the Remove Office application to "delete" your Office installation
- did you try that first?

One more thing to check - there have been reports that having File Vault
turned on may cause problems in some installations (I haven't been able
to reproduce this).

Looking through the posts here and elsewhere it's clear
that there are MANY people who have the same issue. Your
premise that "thousands" have installed Office 2004
successfully suggests to me that the "hundreds" (maybe?) of
others aren't worth bothering with.

Not meant to suggest that at all, and I'm not sure why you'd interpret
it that way, except that you're frustrated. I was responding to your
"Has ANYONE sucessfully installed Office 2004", and trying to point out
that the vast majority of installations are successful (for instance, I
work with a school district that just converted about 1500 machines
without a hitch).

I can't believe that MS MacBU could have let such an important
application suite get out of the door without such basic QA.

Without knowing what the problem is with your installation, it's hard to
know what MacBU could have done differently...other than configure your
machine for you.

I have NEVER had ANY such problems installing and launching ANY other
"mainstream" applications (inc. Apple developer Betas).

I have logged an email support call to Microsoft. Unless they can
solve my issues in the next day or so, I shall return the software,
get my money back and strongly deter any of my colleagues and
customers from purchasing Office 2004 until an upgrade is released.

That's your right, obviously. However, again, without knowing what the
specific problem is with your installation, I would think you'd be doing
them a disservice.

Now, where's that URL link to OpenOffice.....

http://openoffice.org

I use OO as well. It's a pretty good standalone product, though I have
few clients that want to get away from XL.

If you're returning XL, you should also check out Gnumeric:

http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric

I use that in preference to OO.

 

[Chris22]

I was also having problems installing Office 2004. I can
get it to work now, but only after a really odd workaround.

When starting my Mac up each morning, none of the Office
apps (apart from Entourage) launch. However, if I disable
all non-system fonts and THEN launch (for example) Word,
everything's fine.

I know what you're thinking: Corrupt font, right? Well,
now the really weird bit...

If I then reinstall ALL the fonts that I just disabled (in
other words, getting the font situation back to how it was
at booting) Word/PPT/Excel all run fine!

....until I shut down my machine at the end of the day and
have to repeat the above the next morning.

If I had a corrupt font, the Office apps shouldn't suddenly
start working after simply disabling and then re-enabling
all my fonts, should they? I can't get any Office apps to
consistently crash by installing a particular font.

How can I check that my installed fonts are OK? Is it
something I can do from an existing OS X app/utility, or do
I have to buy/download something? I've done the
permissions/repair disk stuff and get a clean bill of health.




Chris

 

[GeeMan]

Don't blame you for feeling that way. You didn't say
whether you'd tried

using the Remove Office application to "delete" your Office installation
- did you try that first?

One more thing to check - there have been reports that having File Vault
turned on may cause problems in some installations (I haven't been able
to reproduce this).

Sorry for sounding off: it's not meant to be directed at
you. You're right, I'm just really pi..ed off at not being
to run a software suite that I've just paid $$$ for.

Yes, I deleted using "Remove Office"
No, I'm not running FileVault

Without knowing what the problem is with your installation, it's hard to
know what MacBU could have done differently...other than configure your
machine for you.

I have to disagree with you. Trawling posts from here and
from other boards it's clear that the problems I'm
experiencing are far from isolated. That suggests that MS
MacBU's QA aren't testing many difference OS X
configurations other than "vanilla" OS X that comes as the
box ships.

That's your right, obviously. However, again, without knowing what the
specific problem is with your installation, I would think you'd be doing
them a disservice.

That's the point: Neither you nor I know what's screwed up
on my install. You're clearly an experience Mac/MS person.
I've been using OS X as my everyday OS since 10.1 and
using Macs since System 7: I don't purport to be an
expert, but then again I like to think that I know what I'm
doing. However, even with our collective experience
neither of us can fathom out what's going on with my install.

The JOB of MS Support is to find that out, diagnose the
problem and (if possible) propose either a workaround or
solution.




BTW my jibe about OpenOffice was meant to be tongue in
cheek. Obviously I should've posted a smiley....


;-)

 

[Ramón G Castañeda]

Try Repairing Permissions (with Apple's Disk Utility) BEFORE and AFTER any
system upgrade as well as BEFORE and AFTER installing any software that uses
an installer.

I know it sounds like OS X voodoo, and it is; but it fixes and prevents a
bunch of problems.

Additionally, if your machine does not run 24/7 so that it runs the daily,
weekly and monthly Cron Scripts in the middle of the night as intended, run
Cocktail (shareware) as well.

 

[Ramón G Castañeda]

Try Repairing Permissions (with Apple's Disk Utility) BEFORE and AFTER any
system upgrade as well as BEFORE and AFTER installing any software that uses
an installer.

I know it sounds like OS X voodoo, and it is; but it fixes and prevents a
bunch of problems.

Additionally, if your machine does not run 24/7 so that it runs the daily,
weekly and monthly Cron Scripts in the middle of the night as intended, run
Cocktail (shareware) as well.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

How can I check that my installed fonts are OK? Is it
something I can do from an existing OS X app/utility, or do
I have to buy/download something? I've done the
permissions/repair disk stuff and get a clean bill of health.

Check out

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313535

If you're on Panther, you can use the Font Book app to streamline the
process.