Safe to install Office 2008?

markw10markw10
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I heard earlier there are some concerns with installing Office 2008 for Mac. It seems it was something about the installer opening up a security hole. I purchased Office 2008 on release date but never installed it since I'm waiting to install it on a new MBP I'm purchasing this weekend. Is it safe to install it or some type of fix for it once installed? Are there certain procedures I should follow when installing?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    markspainmarkspain Posts: 32member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by markw10 View Post


    I heard earlier there are some concerns with installing Office 2008 for Mac. It seems it was something about the installer opening up a security hole. I purchased Office 2008 on release date but never installed it since I'm waiting to install it on a new MBP I'm purchasing this weekend. Is it safe to install it or some type of fix for it once installed? Are there certain procedures I should follow when installing?



    Is Office 2008 for Leopard only? I haven't heard, but I have had success running Office 2001 on my Leopard MB. It's a partitioned hard drive, bootable in either Leopard or Tiger, and Office was installed on the the Tiger volume. But it seems to work just fine when I've booted up in Leopard.



    Doesn't really answer your question, but if you have an older version, at least you have something to fall back on.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by markw10 View Post


    I heard earlier there are some concerns with installing Office 2008 for Mac. It seems it was something about the installer opening up a security hole. I purchased Office 2008 on release date but never installed it since I'm waiting to install it on a new MBP I'm purchasing this weekend. Is it safe to install it or some type of fix for it once installed? Are there certain procedures I should follow when installing?



    Look. If Office 2008 were a major security hole, then this forum would have been flooded with stories about it, both real and imagined. There several complaints about Office 2008:
    • Its user interface sucks.

    • Its native file format is incompatible with most earlier versions of Office.

    • It is slow, perhaps slower than Office 2004 even running Rosetta on Intel-based Macs.

    • It does not support Visual BASIC for Applications.

    I am sure that there are other complaints. Notice that there was not a single security complaint in my list. Ironically, Office 2008's lack of VBA support is a major boost in security because VBA has been a virus-enabling technology. As for the installer, it should be the least of your concerns. With the introduction of Office 2008, Microsoft switched to the standard MacOS X installer.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    maclemmingmaclemming Posts: 46member
    Funny that anyone has complained about the "native" file format, considering that you can choose the file format when you save. While the "native" format for Word is .docx, you can set the default file settings for compatibility with previous versions.



    Go figure
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