Microsoft Office 2008 SP1 (12.1): problems installing, launching apps -- fixes

[Wednesday, May 14th]

Applications won't launch Some users are unable to launch any Microsoft Office 2008 applications after applying the SP1 (12.1) update. In some cases, the setup assistant repeatedly launches in place of the intended application.

One reader writes:

"After installing SP1 for Microsoft Office, I can no longer launch any of the applications. Every time I try to launch Word, etc. - the Setup Assistant runs. I go through the assistant, close it and try to launch the app again and the setup assistant starts up again. I have restarted the computer. No effect - I get stuck in a setup assistant loop. Is anyone else seeing this?"

Fix: If you are experiencing this problem, delete the following files:

• ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist
• /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist

then launch the problematic application(s) and enter your Office 2008 serial number.

Double-clicking documents doesn't open them Other users have reported an issue in which double-clicking documents to trigger an Office application launch no longer works.

One reader writes:

"Is it just me, or has the SP1 update for Office 2008 broken the ability to open an Office application and load a document by double-clicking on a document? Since this morning's update, double-clicking on either Word or Excel files launches the corresponding application, but fails to load the document. Rebooting or rebuilding the Launch Services database have no effect, nor does repairing the permissions."

MacFixIt reader Louis Hecht reports a similar issue:

"I just downloaded and installed...everything seems to work well except when MSWord is executed by choosing an existing document, does not open the (intended) document, but instead opens a new document."

Fix: If you're experiencing similar issues, try updating prebinding by launching the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities) and entering the following command:

• sudo update_prebinding -debug -root / -force

You'll be required to enter an administrator password.

Applications will not update Some users have reported a problem in which the 12.1 update fails to apply to some Office applications. In these cases, your best bet is to delete the entire Office 2008 folder from /Applications, reinstall from the original media and re-attempt the update.

Keychain issues We've received some reports of keychain issues after the 12.1 update. One reader writes:

"I installed successfully (can you imagine?) Office 2008 SP1. Immediately, Entourage 2008 began to require that I allow incoming.isp.net access to keychain so that my accounts can access my email accounts. I clicked on ?Always Allow? but have to do this every time the program or my selection attempts send/receive."

If you are experiencing a similar issue, please let ue know.

Resources

SP1 (12.1) update.

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