Microsoft squashes bugs with Office for Mac update

Microsoft has released an update for Office 2011 for Mac, which fixes a number of bugs with various Office application functions, but in addition closes a vulnerability in the program where a malicious program downloaded by one user could be run with that user's privileges by another local user on the system. While not a serious security vulnerability for most users, it has potential to be a problem for multiple-user setups such as computer labs.

Microsoft has made this update available via its Autoupdate program that will either run automatically or which can be launched from the Help menu in any of the Office 2011 applications. The update is 110.1MB in size and once installed will bring the version of Office to 14.2.3.

The non-security-related bug fixes included in this update are the following:

Improvements that are included in the update

• This update fixes an issue where some SkyDrive folders in Microsoft Document Connection are displayed as 0-byte files instead of folders.
• This update provides critical updates for connection reliability with SkyDrive.

Improvements for Excel for Mac 2011

• This update improves stability in Excel when you drag to move a PivotTable row or column.
• This update fixes an issue in Excel where #REF is returned even when links are ignored.

Improvements for Outlook for Mac 2011

• This update fixes an issue where some IMAP users may receive an "Unknown namespace" error when they try to create special folders (such as Drafts and Sent Items) on the server.
• This update fixes an issue with some IMAP configurations in which Outlook repeatedly displays "Cannot create mailbox" errors.
• This update fixes an issue that causes Outlook not to display details for certain contacts when Lync or Communicator is running.
• This update fixes a problem that occurs when users reply to or forward Exchange e-mail messages that were downloaded from Exchange 2007 servers. When this problem occurs, the Date field is missing from the body of the message.
  
  To correct e-mail messages that have already been cached, right-click the folder that contains the e-mail messages, select Folder Properties, and then then select Empty under Empty Cache. Or, you can delete the Exchange account and then add it again to resynchronize the account.
• This update fixes an issue in which users may have duplication of mail when they use Gmail and connect with Outlook by using IMAP.
• This update fixes an issue in which some users who have IMAP accounts intermittently receive a "Too many simultaneous connections" error. A setting is now available to control the polling interval that Outlook uses with IMAP servers.
  
  To adjust this setting, select Tools, select Accounts, and then select Advanced for the IMAP account. The setting defaults to synchronize all lMAP folders every 2 minutes. This update fixes a connectivity issue that occurs when Outlook connects through a proxy server that uses NTLM based authentication.

Improvements to Word for Mac 2011

• This update improves Full Screen View integration with Word.

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