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Microsoft Releases Office 2008 12.1.5 and Office 2004 11.5.3 Updates
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Dang, people weren't kidding about the increased speed of the load times. I was weary of updating for fear of running into bugs, but so far so good, and super fast!
Wow, this update really made a big difference. It's almost as fast as the trusty old v.X ever was 
Is there any way at all that I could get a copy of one of the documents where you're seeing this problem? Also, if you've got details of how the file was created (which version of Word, be it Mac or Windows) would be fantastic. PM me for my email address.
Regards,
Nadyne.
My only question is whether this update fixes the Office 2008 bug where copying a graph from an Excel document made with Excel 2004 into a Word document made in Word 2004 crashes Excel. Powerpoint's far nicer behaviour and compatibility in Office 2008 had me just about convinced to use it until I ran into this issue.
Entourage suffering from password-amnesia
@iphonematt - yes, that's how I found this forum. Very annoying, definitely happening since the update, and in my case every time I highlight the inbox of a different account (I have Gmail, Exchange and Hotmail x 2) it asks for the password. If I go into account settings for an account and enter the password and check the "save password in Mac OS Keychain" box and click OK, then go straight back into the settings for that account, the password is gone and the box is cleared. Poo.
Edit: found a fix of sorts, altho it doesn't seem to get to the bottom of the issue. Loads of Entourage users are having this problem: http://www.officeformac.com/ProductForums/Entourage/7829/27
@iphonematt - yes, that's how I found this forum. Very annoying, definitely happening since the update, and in my case every time I highlight the inbox of a different account (I have Gmail, Exchange and Hotmail x 2) it asks for the password. If I go into account settings for an account and enter the password and check the "save password in Mac OS Keychain" box and click OK, then go straight back into the settings for that account, the password is gone and the box is cleared. Poo.
Edit: found a fix of sorts, altho it doesn't seem to get to the bottom of the issue. Loads of Entourage users are having this problem: http://www.officeformac.com/ProductForums/Entourage/7829/27
Word doc slowness
Nadyne, I have a document that causes Word to beachball for up to 15 seconds for the simplest of operations. It's a heavily tables-based document, one page, basically it's a form for users to log their hours of work/rest. If I cut and paste a row of 24 cells, that operation results in a semi-frozen Word.app that takes ages to respond. Sometimes I get the beachball also. I'd be willing to send you the doc, I'd just have to remove the company name and logos due to confidentiality obligations. Let me know because this doc behaves absolutely fine under Word/Windows.
Edit: Ok maybe not as bad as I thought - doc was on a Windows server, when copied to my desktop, the local copy edits much faster. Still a few weird pauses but we're talking half to one second max. Weird though that it seems to be so affected by the network (does coping a row of cells in a table require lots of accesses to the file?).
Nadyne, I have a document that causes Word to beachball for up to 15 seconds for the simplest of operations. It's a heavily tables-based document, one page, basically it's a form for users to log their hours of work/rest. If I cut and paste a row of 24 cells, that operation results in a semi-frozen Word.app that takes ages to respond. Sometimes I get the beachball also. I'd be willing to send you the doc, I'd just have to remove the company name and logos due to confidentiality obligations. Let me know because this doc behaves absolutely fine under Word/Windows.
Edit: Ok maybe not as bad as I thought - doc was on a Windows server, when copied to my desktop, the local copy edits much faster. Still a few weird pauses but we're talking half to one second max. Weird though that it seems to be so affected by the network (does coping a row of cells in a table require lots of accesses to the file?).
Huge Improvement
All I have to say is there is a huge improvement on start-up times. Not sure why this wasn't showing up in AutoUpdate, but it definitely should for everyone who uses Office!
All I have to say is there is a huge improvement on start-up times. Not sure why this wasn't showing up in AutoUpdate, but it definitely should for everyone who uses Office!
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12.1.3 Error
I've also got the problem with Excel and PowerPoint saying the last update is 12.1.5, with the current build, but the current version is 12.1.3.
I saw a forum on ArsTechnica where a guy claiming to be an MS employee said the error is related to parental controls, and the only way to fix it is to completely remove MS Office, then reload it from the original disk, manually update it to 12.1.0, then manually apply the 12.1.5 patch (all prior to running any of the software). He did say they are looking at a way to do a correction through a patch, but had no status update on that.
My Word opens really fast now, and I'm probably going to wait to see if they send a patch in the next few weeks before I waste my time doing a reinstall.
I've also got the problem with Excel and PowerPoint saying the last update is 12.1.5, with the current build, but the current version is 12.1.3.
I saw a forum on ArsTechnica where a guy claiming to be an MS employee said the error is related to parental controls, and the only way to fix it is to completely remove MS Office, then reload it from the original disk, manually update it to 12.1.0, then manually apply the 12.1.5 patch (all prior to running any of the software). He did say they are looking at a way to do a correction through a patch, but had no status update on that.
My Word opens really fast now, and I'm probably going to wait to see if they send a patch in the next few weeks before I waste my time doing a reinstall.
I worked a lot with someone at Microsoft, and at this point that's the conclusion, reinstall Office.
I found this link with the directions:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/help.m...-US&usid=a9bc515d-b2e4-4a01-b71b-6d4c696fce77
I did this and it worked fine. No prefs lost, no license lost, and the version numbers are correct.
I don't use Parental Controls, so I don't think that's the issue.
-Kevin
Things may start up quicker, but Excel is still quite incredibly slow once it has started up. Even one of the easiest things I can imagine asking it to do - auto-size a spreadsheet's columns - sets it off thinking for a few minutes.
And on this occasion, it has given up, after claiming all 4GB of my RAM, and has given me looping 'out of memory' dialogs. Calculation of sheets is also impressively slow; a good half hour for what takes two minutes in Windows .
And with all of the talk of graphics improvements in Leopard updates and improvements to Office itself, Word's paragraph/formatting marks still mess up when scrolling in a document.
And on this occasion, it has given up, after claiming all 4GB of my RAM, and has given me looping 'out of memory' dialogs
. Calculation of sheets is also impressively slow; a good half hour for what takes two minutes in Windows .And with all of the talk of graphics improvements in Leopard updates and improvements to Office itself, Word's paragraph/formatting marks still mess up when scrolling in a document
.
That was my post at ArsTechnica, and yes, I do work in the MacBU. Both Parental Controls and the Firewall do ad-hoc code signing of code binaries, which confuses our current patch. We're working on fixing the issue, but for now you need to follow the instructions that you linked to above if the updater failed for you the first time.
Schwieb
MacBU Dev Lead
Ah ok. I do use the firewall, so if both are doing the signing, then I guess either could impact it.
-Kevin
