Big Fixes for Mac Office 2008

Microsoft has releases a major update to its Office 2008 suite for the Mac, including security fixes.

Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit has released a significant set of fixes to its Office 2008 productivity suite for Mac OS X. The Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.0.1 update includes a number of critical fixes, patches security vulnerabilities, and addresses a number of other bugs that have bitten some Macintosh users. The update is available as a standalone 114 MB download, and will likely turn up in Microsoft Office’s AutoUpdate feature…assuming users have installed the 2.1.1 update to the AutoUpdate feature.

Microsoft has detailed a number of improvements and fixes in its technical note about the Office 2008 12.0.1 update; important improvements include fixing an Excel security vulnerability that could have enabled attackers to execute code on users’ systems and a fix to the Office installer that meant Office application files were owned by the wrong user ID (the update goes back and corrects the permissions). The update includes a number of application-specific fixes, including a patch for Word crashing on first launch when attempting to import older application settings, several cosmetic and display fixes for Excel (along with a WORKDAY function that actually works on Macs using the 1904 date system), and fixes for PowerPoint that enable it to save presentations reliably over a network using SMB, and save presentations without corrupting audio files. Italian users will be happy to note that Word 2008 no longer crashes when trying to check spelling or grammar with an Italian keyboard.

The Office for Mac 2008 12.0.1 update is a free download.