Re: Serious Word Document Problems - Please, PLEASE Help! :(

Welcome to the wonderful world of modern computing :-)

On Windows and Mac OS X, there is a single system installer. Other software
vendors are supposed to simply call the system installer. Due to the recent
influx of malware, later Windows versions are much more proactive about
checking that stuff bas been properly installed using the system installer,
and silently rolling it back if it hasn't been.

Mac OS X also has a system installer, and people who provide an installer
for their software would normally use it. But OS X still supports
drag-and-drop installation, which bypasses the installer.

As Jeff pointed out, it's usually worth advising non-technical users to run
the installer if there is one -- it guarantees that any previous versions
are correctly cleaned up and the files are added with the correct
permissions.

For the past 20 years or so, disk errors have been so rare that the
application files are not normally the problem: it's the user preferences
that get corrupted (because after installation, they are the only files that
ever get "written" to).

Neither the Mac nor Windows installers will replace an application file that
already exists. That's why you have to run the "Remove Office" utility.
However, the Windows installer will clean up the "Prefs" (because it checks
and corrects the registry, which is where Windows stores its prefs). The
Mac OS installer simply ignores any Pref file that already exists.

Doing a drag-and-drop "Install" won't fix this, because the Pref files do
not exist on the distribution media. But doing what you recommend,
restoring from a backup, WOULD fix the problem PROVIDED that your backup
included the Pref files. Many people do not include pref files in their
backups, because their content tends to need to be currently consistent with
the rest of the machine environment of the moment. So you can cause more
problems than you cure, if you restore a month-old set of Pref files. Most
Mac Apps will re-create Pref files at firs-run if they do not already exist.

Hope this helps

On 13/9/05 9:07 PM, in article
1126609664.980703.325150@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
"JosypenkoMJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <JosypenkoMJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> Jeff Wiseman wrote:
>> JosypenkoMJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>> I normally don't even want to think about and deal with the nonsense of
>>> what Word is doing when it is corrupted (corrupt files here, there,
>>
>>
>> I normally "don't want to think about and deal with the nonsense
>> of what Word is doing" either :-) Unfortunately, if you want to
>> use it successfully, you will have to learn some things about it...
>>
>> I believe that what JE McGimpsey was inferring (and I agree with)
>> was that "Word" is not corrupted. Some files that it uses (e.g.,
>> user preferences) have been corrupted and through Word's normal
>> everyday buggy unstable behavior, it chokes to death when it
>> tries to open such a file.
>>
>>
>>> everywhere). It is far easier to treat it as any corrupted program and
>>> simply reinstall it (although from what you said MS has changed the
>>
>>
>> Because of the way OS X stores files, it is very unlikely that
>> the application software itself is corrupted. The need for
>> reinstalling programs of any sort due to corrupted applications
>> the way you would in Windows or even early days Mac OS programs
>> is pretty rare. In fact, doing so with many applications can
>> actually introduce problems if it is not done exactly correct
>> taking into account the correct removal of any earlier installs
>> (Office for Mac is one of them). That is why installers are used
>>
>>
>>> word install to mean partial install - no preferences. Not many these
>>> days know how to call a spade a spade).
>>
>>
>> Installs, in general, do NOT diddle with your preference files.
>> If they did, everytime someone did an upgrade, they would have to
>> reset absolutely everything which many people would object to
>> (especially since it could include having to reconfigure all the
>> styles and such in their Normal file). Especially on a multi-user
>> system like OS X where you could conceptually have 40 different
>> users all with their own preferences set up. Is an install
>> supposed to seek out and destroy the preferences of everyone on
>> the system? In general, no UNIX based application would ever do
>> this as it violates the separation of user configurables and
>> system configurables.
>>
>>
>>> days know how to call a spade a spade). I don't even install - I just
>>> recopy all the Word files from a backup.
>>
>>
>> Depending on how you go about this, it could be the worse
>> possible thing to do. Running a full recover on the entire system
>> may be OK. Copying from a backup can change permissions and
>> ownerships which can also create a nest of trouble.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jeff Wiseman
>> to reply, just remove ALLTHESPAM
>
> I guess I don't need to worry about the Unix type of environment with
> file permissions - OS is 9.2.2. Also not using shared software on a
> network - environment is single user.
> Before there were Mac's and then PC's, and third party software like
> Word with dozens of files and individual installers putting files who
> knows where (although lately there are installer logs), there were OS's
> (eg. RT-11) where :
>
> - there was only 1 installer, the system installer
> - all programs other than user written ones were part of the OS. If one
> got corrupted, such as the text editor, a person simply recopied it (1
> file) from the original system disk - it would have been ridiculous to
> rerun the OS installer.
>
> I've had 1 situation of Quick Time 3.0 being corrupted every once in
> a while on a 7300, OS 7.6._. PictureViewer would hang - replacing it
> did nothing - I had to rerun the installer to replace everything.
>
>> ... Unfortunately, if you want to use it successfully, you will have to learn
>> some things about it...
>
> Unfortunately, yes, althought an end user should not have to be
> concerned about the inner workings of a product.
> This is like a car manufacturer making a car with a loose timing belt
> and expecting the driver every once in a while to have to take out his
> wrenches from the trunk toolbox and reset the belt, after the engine
> has skipped a tooth forcing the car to die in the middle of the road.
>
>> .... Is an install supposed to seek out and destroy the preferences ...
>
> Yes. If I install a new alternator in a car, I definitely would not
> want any pieces of the old one remaining, which may be broken, worn
> out, or burnt out.
>

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

.

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