Office v.X SR1 and Jaguar

D

dracolich

Registered
This is my setup: 600 Mhz iBook, 20 GB HD, OS 9.2.2 and OS X on the same drive (no partitions).
Two weeks ago I upgraded my OS X System from 10.1.5 to 10.2, then run the latest Security update, then the 10.2.1 update, then run Disk Utility to check and solve permission problems.
All seemed OK.

And now... under 10.1.5 I had installed Office v.X, patched immediately to SR 1. Under OS 9 I kept my Office 98 folder, 'cause at the time it was the only way to print out the documents.

When saturday I booted into 9 to "work" with Deus Ex, I immediately noticed that my Word 98 icon had been replaced by the Word X icon. Same thing with PowerPoint and Excel, now sporting a bad looking "X" icon. Same thing with all the Office documents, all with Aqua icons. Now, if I double click over a Office file under 9, the system tries to start Office X, then tells me I need to run it under 10.1 or later (thanks, I know). The only way I have to open the docs under OS 9 is to start Word (or Excel or PowerPoint) 98, then open the file using the Open... menu command.
The Norton Utilities haven't been helpful (run Disk Doctor twice), I have checked the files for damage using Conflict Catcher and it says they are fine. I have tried changing the assigned "opener" using Document Sharing (Interscambio Documenti in italian, I don't know the real name in English). I have rebuilt the desktop. I have zapped the PRAM. I have tried anything I can think of. The last thing I'm proposing to do is to simply reinstall Office, both 98 and X, but I'm CURIOUS.
How has THIS happened? Is there a simple solution that I've overlooked?

BTW, after the ugrade to OS X I've also lost the Synonims under Word X: if I try to use them, the application "unexpectedly" closes.

...sorry for the lenghty explanation...
 
The problem is because both the OS X and OS 9 versions of the Office applications have the same creator codes. The Finder uses the creator codes to construct a database of which applications handle which documents. Since the code is the same on both versions, the Finder is just "randomly" choosing the OS X applications. I've never really found a workaround for this, but then again, I've never really needed to. There's probably a way to hack your Desktop file to manually change the association, but I'm not sure how reliable this would be.
 
I guessed it had to do with creator codes, but what really amazes me is that Office 98 programs have taken the Office X apps icons.
And that the problem happened after the 10.2 upgrade, and not before (under 10.1).
I wonder if anything has been changed in OS 9 after I put a Jaguar in my machine...

:rolleyes:

...anyway, I just deleted the Office 98 folder, since I no longer need 9 to print (thanks CUPS and gimp-print!), and now this is just "scientific curiosity".
Anyone else affected, out there?
 
I too had the same problem when I had both OS9 and OSX on the same partition. This is no longer a problem for me now as I upgraded my (PowerBook) hard drive to 30GB (from 6GB) and have OSX and OS9 on separate partitions. I have found this to be a far more stable and amiable relationship for my Mac OS's. I've got no idea how you would get around the problem of the creator codes. And YES, Gimp-Print is fantastic news for those of us who have a legacy printer with no native OSX driver support.
 
BTW, after the ugrade to OS X I've also lost the Synonyms under Word X: if I try to use them, the application "unexpectedly" closes.
Click to expand...

Just an update: I have recovered my Thesaurus. Apparently, the Jag update had reset Word prefs to "default", so that Word was trying to use the first dictionary around, which happened to be 'czech' (wich wasn't installed). Set the language back to Italian and now the funny program works again. And now I'll try the new Office 10.1.1 update to fix the general instability still around...
 
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