Problem running Word 2004 and Word 2008 together

Greetings!

I'm running OS 10.4.11 on a G5 DP 2.0 Mac.

I installed Office 2008 (home & student ed) this morning, and wanted to
try it out. When the Installer prompted me to remove older versions of
Office, I did NOT accept that. The installer has the boxes to select
older versions unchecked as the default, so evidently MS believes that
this should not cause any horrible problems, or else they wouldn't
encourage us to keep them through this default option.

I have Office 2004, Office X, Office 2001, and also Word 5.1a installed,
and use all of them for various projects, though I use only Word 2004
for new work.

After installing Office 2008 but without actually launching Word 2008, I
opened Word 2004, intending to continue some work with it and planning
to check out Word 2008 later. Word ran through a series of notices in
its splash window about configuring Office components, and then launched
normally.

Later I tried to launch Word 2008, but it quit immediately upon launch.

I assume that by enabling Word 2004 to reconfigure itself, it nuked the
underlying configuration required for Office 2008. Perhaps I am at fault
for relaunching 2004 without running 2008 at least once first.

Anyway, does anyone have both 2008 and 2004 working together side by sie
without this kind of problem? And what's the best way to repair the
situation, assuming this is workable. I am not willing to entrust
important work to 2008 until I use it for unimportant work long enough
to develop some confidence.

Thanks in advance for any informed comments!

George

Hi George,

Yes, I have Word 2008 and 2004 running side by side. I suspect your own
diagnosis is correct. My suggestion would be to do a full removal of Office
2008* and then make sure 2004 is working properly. Quit all 2004 (and
earlier) apps. If you use Entourage 2004, be sure to quit the Microsoft
Database Daemon.** Then reinstall Office 2008 and launch all the Office
2008 applications that you use before launching any of the earlier apps.

*To remove Office 2008 completely, be sure use the Remove Office tool:
Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Additional Tools/Remove Office.

**To quit the MSFT Database Daemon, launch Activity Monitor
(Applications/Utilities). Do a normal Quit Process, not a Force Quit.

HTH,

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>




On 1/17/08 8:09 AM, in article
gfowler-C63731.11095517012008.TakeThisOut@unlimited.newshosting.com, "George Nospam"
<gfowler.TakeThisOut@nospam.net> wrote:

> Greetings!
>
> I'm running OS 10.4.11 on a G5 DP 2.0 Mac.
>
> I installed Office 2008 (home & student ed) this morning, and wanted to
> try it out. When the Installer prompted me to remove older versions of
> Office, I did NOT accept that. The installer has the boxes to select
> older versions unchecked as the default, so evidently MS believes that
> this should not cause any horrible problems, or else they wouldn't
> encourage us to keep them through this default option.
>
> I have Office 2004, Office X, Office 2001, and also Word 5.1a installed,
> and use all of them for various projects, though I use only Word 2004
> for new work.
>
> After installing Office 2008 but without actually launching Word 2008, I
> opened Word 2004, intending to continue some work with it and planning
> to check out Word 2008 later. Word ran through a series of notices in
> its splash window about configuring Office components, and then launched
> normally.
>
> Later I tried to launch Word 2008, but it quit immediately upon launch.
>
> I assume that by enabling Word 2004 to reconfigure itself, it nuked the
> underlying configuration required for Office 2008. Perhaps I am at fault
> for relaunching 2004 without running 2008 at least once first.
>
> Anyway, does anyone have both 2008 and 2004 working together side by sie
> without this kind of problem? And what's the best way to repair the
> situation, assuming this is workable. I am not willing to entrust
> important work to 2008 until I use it for unimportant work long enough
> to develop some confidence.
>
> Thanks in advance for any informed comments!
>
> George