MacBu released a new installer for the Office 2008 Update 12.0.1 today. This is not new Office bits to be installed, but the installer itself that was changed. This change was a result of problems experienced by some Office 2008 users having a failed update to 12.0.1. If you are one of the unfortunate few that had problems, this patch is for you. If you were able to successfully update to 12.0.1 then you do not need this patch.
Use the Remove Office tool to completely remove Office.
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Additional Tools folder
This will not require you to run the Setup Assistant again. If you do want the Setup Assistant to run, you will need to delete your Microsoft preferences OR manually run the Setup Assistant in the /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/ folder.
Remove Office does not remove any documents or personal settings you have saved. However, there are rare cases after running an installer where data goes missing. Making a backup is always advised when updating software. The folder you need to backup is your Microsoft User Data folder located in Documents.
YOUR USER FOLDER/Documents/Microsoft User Data
Tips: Eject your Time Machine drive to speed up the installer looking for volumes with Office installed. During the install process if it appears to stall with a spinning rainbow, give it some time, then some more time and lastly even more time. It will eventually come out of the apparant crash and finish.
Note: “About one minute remaining” is not Earth time. (big grin)
After you run the Remove Office tool, reinstall Office 2008 from your original DVD, and then restart your computer. It’s important that you restart your computer before you install the 12.0.1 update, so don’t forget to do it.
After your computer restarts, use AutoUpdate to check for updates, and then download and install the 12.0.1 Update. Optional to restart after updating. Why not, just to cover all bases?
Users that have modified, moved or changed Office:
Any change to an Office 2008 application can prevent an upgrade for installing successfully. So anyone who modifies the info.plist or makes other changes to the application is preventing themselves from getting upgraded. If you run into problems during installation of the update, try any of the following:
- Move the Microsoft Office 2008 folder back to the Applications folder on your startup drive
- Change the Microsoft Office 2008 folder back to its original name
- Restore any files or other items that were removed from the Microsoft Office 2008 folder
Do not run scripts or engage in processes that modify the applications in the Microsoft Office 2008 folder.
- There is a script out that someone has put together that modifies the info.plist for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel to help with interactions with Safari. Because the info.plist has been modified, the patch installer no longer recognizes the application as the ones that were installed
- There is an application out on sourceforge.net that will modify the resource bundles. Like the above issue, the application bundle has been changed and as such the patch installer no longer recognizes the application as one that has been installed by Microsoft.
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The standalone download at Mactopia is dated March 14 in the description, and the a Get Info on the dmg file also says March 14. Your blog was created on the 20th … so, is Microsoft serving the old one on Mactopia? Or is this download really the new one, but with an old date.
[The bits to install are the same so the updater release date was not changed. However, the actual installer was changed. This fixes some problems experienced by some users. An analogy is your car is a 2007 Chevy, you were running on regular gasoline, but now use premium. Same car, same model but a different agent to run your vehicle.] Diane Ross
many thanks for this. finally got the update installed.
[edited profanity] Diane
I have tried everything that I can imagine. I am running Leopard with all updates installed on a Macbook Pro I purchased in December.
I installed Office 2008 and removed Office 2004 at the end of the installation process. I tried to install the Mac 12.0.1 update, but fails with the:
“A version of the software required to install this update was not found on this volume”
I have searched the internet. I have removed office 3 times, using Office’s “remove office” tool. I have deleted the packages related to Office 2008 in the /Library/Receipts. Is there anyway to just extract the files manually from the installer and dump them into the Office installation? Can I just point directly to the Office installation? This is pretty major problem for me at the moment. I would like the stability enhancements of the update.
War Eagle!
Try applying the Apple combo updater and then see if the Office updater will work.
Mac OS X 10.5.2 Combo Update
Pacifist can be used to install packages, but I’m suspecting some underlying problem with your OS files. Hopefully the combo updater will fix them.
As an example, I was having trouble installing Thunderbird. It would not launch. I tried the combo updater and it indicated there was no volume that was available. I ended up having to install Leopard again. I could have saved some time and done an “Archive & Install”, but because I beta test I felt it was time to wipe my drive and install fresh.
Let me know if the combo updater helps.
Cool, so I guess there is an Auburn connection somewhere.
My Leopard system was already at 10.5.2. I downloaded the Combo Update anyways, but it did not allow a reinstall. I was unsure if it would be wise to roll back and reinstall the combo update.
I am confident that a clean install of Leopard will fix my problems, but that is undesirable (I have many hundreds of hours of work in compiling open source projects, chasing dependencies, etc and would not want to relive that experience).
I downloaded Pacifist and will give it a shot tomorrow. I wish I knew more of what the installer was looking for. It detects the volume, but does not find what it is searching for after that. The “examining volume” process before I get the error sometimes takes a little while to run.
Thanks for the quick response. That was awesome. Lastly, Office 2004 updates never had this problem.
Yes, I graduated from Auburn back in the dark ages.
Since the combo updater failed, you might try the “Archive & Install”. It might require you to re-enter some of your registration info, but overall it is pretty painless. Just be sure to check Preserve Users and Network Settings when you select Archive & Install.
Once the install has finished, your system will be at whatever level the disk you have is. So if your Install DVD/CD disk is 10.5.0, that’s what version of OS will be on your Mac. You will need to download the appropriate Combo Updater from Apple’s site to restore the system to a higher version. After you run the combo, allow Software Update to download and install any additional updates.
Very poor support site on the original Mactopia site as you yourselves admit:
“Currently, the Mactopia site is going through a transition making it harder to find some downloads. You can use the direct links below or visit Mactopia Downloads.”
How long has this message been up? when will you fix the really poor mactopia website? How many hours of user time have been wasted?
Do you really care? I guess not or you would have fixed this site.
Mactopia is an official Microsoft site. The Entourage Help Blog is not an official Microsoft site. We do not work for Microsoft and we have nothing to do with Mactopia. All I can do is suggest you send feedback to Microsoft.
When working in Office, you can use the “Send Feedback” option under the Help menu in all of the Office applications or visit this link.
Hi Diane, I apologize for my mistake and the slightly irrate comment. Please accept my thanks for the very useful webpages, you have saved me hours of messing around.
No worries…
Hi,
I recently bought Mac Office 2008 for student and home businesses and it installed as v12.1.0 and updated fine to 12.2.2. I have subsequently bought the upgrade to the standard version as I need to connect to an exchange server.
Installing this upgrade sets the version back to 12.0.0 (note this is a *lower* version than the original installed version of Student and Home Business edition). The result is that the auto-updater detects 12.1.0 (SP1) as the next available update, but this update won’t install (the dreaded “version not found” issue). I have tried every workaround I can find (remove, re-install, restart holding shift, etc, etc) and none of them work. I can’t find a specific post relating to an upgraded version of Office though, so am hoping (praying?) that you will know of a solution
Any assist would be great!
I installed Microsoft Office 2008 Home & Student Edition on my iMac using the second product key. I had previously installed the software on my iBook using the first product key. Updates install fine on the IBook, but when trying to install updates on the iMac I get the message that the “connection to the update server was interrupted.”
I followed directions in provided by HELP to re-enter a valid product key but still wasn’t able to connect to the update server.
Any help would be great.
This sounds like a connection error and not a product key error.
Have you tried downloading directly from Mactopia?
Hi,
I’ve been using Entourage for years with no problems, however, today I tried to forward an email and now I can’t open Entourage completely to receive my emails. Spinning ball is forever and would have to “force quit”
I use a Mac G5. OS10 ver10.4.11
Please help. Thank you
First your question had nothing to do with this post. Anyone wanting to learn from my reply would never find it. The next time you have a problem, ask on the newsgroup . See the top post for how to get help.
How to get individual help
Hold down the Shift key when launching Entourage. This will disable schedules. Open the Outbox and delete the email.