MS Office 2008 compatibility with Lion

2008 works fine.

2004 isn't compatible.

Hope this helps.

Bob.

As long as it's already installed, Office 2008 will work just fine (it's what I'm using). However, if you haven't installed it yet, it will not install in Lion as the installer for it was written with old code that required Rosetta to run, and Lion dropped all Rosetta support.

Actually, I was able to FRESH-install Office 2008 on a new iMac that was pre-loaded with Lion. At first it didn't accept the license key upon first-run of an Office 2008 application. BUT, after I copied the two preference files (that contain license information) from a different machine with a running copy of O2008, it worked great and I was able to update to the latest service packs. So that's a work-around if you can get access to an older machine tha already has a working copy of 2008.

Message was edited by: Ryan Emerson

Ryan, could you be more specific, which files, install instructions? I have 2 iMac and a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, so I have access to another computer. Thanks, Harvey

Dang Harvey -- that was months ago. But I am pretty sure its these two:

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist

AND

/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist

As I recall, I just deleted the ones that showed up after install the Lion machine, then put the "good" ones from the other machine in those locations.

Let me know if that works. If not, I'll be happy to investigate further...

Message was edited by: Ryan Emerson

Mike Osborn wrote:

As long as it's already installed, Office 2008 will work just fine (it's what I'm using). However, if you haven't installed it yet, it will not install in Lion as the installer for it was written with old code that required Rosetta to run, and Lion dropped all Rosetta support.

Often stated, but not true. I own a copy of Office 2008 and am able to install it on a Lion partition.

Our firm recently purchased two new iMacs with Lion preinstalled. We use Microsoft Office 2008 on all our older mac (9 G5 iMacs running Leapord) of the two new Lion Macs that I installed MS Office 08 on, one works wonderfully and the second has been reported to have problems with random crashing of MS Office.

It happens to my misfortune as the resident IT tech, the majority partner (The Big Boss) uses the crashy one as well as myself and other staff members. He is the only one that seems to have issues with it. I have even gone to running multiple instances of large word and excel documents at the same time on this machine (1 gb+ active in memory) and can't get Office to crash. I know that he is not coming close to that kind of stress on the resources.

I have 14 yr of support experince with MS OSs and 5 yrs with Linux, this is my first job where OS X is the dominate OS. So I accept that there might be a few blind spots in my knowledge base. I can't find any reports of this same situation, and I can't reproduce the error as reported to me.

I'm about ready to chalk this one up to user error, unless someone can shed some light on this.

I was using Office '04 until installing Lion, and was thrilled to find it not compatible. As a workaround I've started using Open Office again, which handily opens all the same file types and can save as those file types too. Open Office is a universal platform developed by Sun Microsystems, now used by some governments (e.g. France) so that all citizens can read files no matter what type of system they have. Anyway, it's freeware, no ads, and you can download it at openoffice.org

To KristinMT, Although Office 2008 is compatible with Lion, the installer is not. You might try this, but it will require a lot of time and effort. You will need a copy of Snow Leopard to do this, and since your computers came with Lion pre-installed you will have to get a copy of Snow Leopard. Office 2008 and the installer are compatible with Snow Leopard.

Install Snow Leopard on the HD and then re-install Office 2008. Once it is properly installed and working, then do a system upgrade to Lion. If the problem lies with the incompatibility of the installer with Lion, that should cure the problem. The only question in my mind is whether or not you can downgrade to an older OS without wiping out your files, so be sure to back everything up in the event that you have to reformat the drive to install Snow Leopard. I used Office 2004 prior to my Lion upgrade, so I bought Office 2011 home and business and it works very well, I really like Outlook as an email client, much better than Entourage. I never liked the Apple Mail application, although most people who use it. So, another option for you is to buy Office 2011 for Mac, may be easier than swapping OSs back and forth.

Hope this helps.

Although Office 2008 is compatible with Lion, the installer is not.

Only some of the installers are incompatible. If it is a standard package installer like most other Mac software, it will work. Some of the copies apparently shipped with a "home-built" installer that is PowerPC based.

Only some of the installers are incompatible. If it is a standard package installer like most other Mac software, it will work. Some of the copies apparently shipped with a "home-built" installer that is PowerPC based.

This is just not true.

"KristinMT" stated that he/she was able to install Office 2008 on two new Lion Macs and is having problems with one of the two installs. So, it's hardly a situation where the installers are PowerPC Based.

Ah, but the statement is true, at least to the fact that there are standard package installers that work. I have one. I've installed it on Lion. No problems. I have only seen other people post that they get the PowerPC is not compatible message when they use their Office 2008 installer.

Notice that it is a Package and not a program; packages are not "PowerPC" or "Intel" or "Universal"; Also note that it is running.

Thanks for all the insightful comments.

Pretty sure I don't want to do the downgrade and then upgrade option. I tend to be very conservitive when it comes upgrade vs clean install of OSs. If it is an issue with the Office version and not the OS I would rather scrap Office.

Upgrading Office 2011 isn't where I want to spend my IT budget right now, I have a lot of server side upgrades/projects in the works. That are far more critical to the long term structure and usiblity of the network. If I install a new version of Office on one, all the staff will want the "shiny new thing" someone else has. I don't want to open that office politics can of worms.

OpenOffice maybe the way to go. I have been using it on all my personal computer for years, since the roll out of MSOffice XP. I also like the consistancy it offers across all the computers platforms in the network. I currently have it running on one of the old G3s I am using to convert years of old ClarisWorks, iWorks and MS Word 3&4 documents to PDFs.

I have heard the Mac community is very helpful. Thanks for the help.

I can certainly understand your reluctance to downgrade the OS in order to install a program that works with both the older (Snow Leopard) and newer (Lion) OS. Unfortunately the installer is the issue, not the application itself. According to several articles I have read, and confirmed with Microsoft before I upgraded to Lion, this is the case. Except for some bells and whistles, that I don't really use, I find the only real improvement of Office 2011 over 2004 to me is the replacement of Entourage with Outlook for email. As I said in my original response, I do not like Apple Mail, so I went for the home and business edition.

Good luck. It might be worth your while to contact Microsoft tech support to see if there is a work-around to install 2008 on Lion without the downgrade of the OS and then re-installing 10.7. They are still supporting Office 2008.

harvey