Can you get MS Office 2004 working with OS X 10.8.2? I just updated to the newest OS and now when I try to open Office apps its says PowerPC apps are no longer supported. Any ideas on how to resolve?

duncanfitzgerald wrote:

Yes, but what if I have the new operating system (OS X 10.8.2), but I wish to run Office 2004 Word and Power Point applications?

You can't. Upgarde to a supported version of Office.

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities

Office 2004 isn't supported on Mountain Lion. You can upgrade to Office 2011, buy iWork applications in the App Store or use LibreOffice

Yes, but what if I have the new operating system (OS X 10.8.2), but I wish to run Office 2004 Word and Power Point applications?

Thanks Bob, but hopefully someone can be more creative. I know my Mac can morph into a PC and if that's possible, it should be able to run an additional, older Mac operating system that can accommodate Office 2004?

should be able to run an additional, older Mac operating system that can accommodate Office 2004?

Nope, can't. PowerPC was the type of CPUs used by Apple before switching to Intel. In OS X 10.5 and 10.6 (Leopard & Snow Leopard), Apple licensed and incorporated a PPC to Intel interpretor, which they called Rosetta. That made it possible to run PPC software on an Intel Mac, but is no longer part of OS X. Since Office 2004 is all PPC code, it, nor any other PPC software can run natively on any Mac with OS X 10.7 or 10.8 (Lion & Mountain Lion).

Thank you Kurt, however, someone told me I could install Fusion and then reinstall an older operating system that would run Office 2004. Is this possible?

Thank you Kurt, however, someone told me I could install Fusion and then reinstall an older operating system that would run Office 2004. Is this possible?

Yes, that is true. I didn't mention an alternative since we were discussing running PPC software directly in Mountain Lion.

You can install Leopard Server or Snow Leopard Server in Fusion or Parallels, which will give you PPC support within the VM. Both are rather expensive. No VM software will directly allow you to install a client version of Leopard or Snow Leopard. We still don't know why since the license for those versions of OS X do not forbid it.

Apple does not, and will not support it, but instructions to possibly get a client version of SL running in a Parallels is here.

duncanfitzgerald wrote:

Thank you Kurt, however, someone told me I could install Fusion and then reinstall an older operating system that would run Office 2004. Is this possible?

[click on image to enlarge]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439

It is very unefficient to install an expensive Virtualizer and install an older OSX to run MS Office 2004 in there: It will cost more $ than buying MS Office 2011, and it uses a **** of a lot more resources (ram, diskspace, CPU%) than running MS Office 2011 in ML.

The cheapest solution is LibreOffice, OpenOffice or NeoOffice, which are all practically alike MS Office, so there is practically no learning curve.

It is very inefficient to install an expensive Virtualizer and install an older OSX to run MS Office 2004 in there: It will cost more $ than buying MS Office 2011, and it uses a **** of a lot more resources

Definitely. It's only worth the trouble to set up a VM for PPC software if you have a lot of it that has never been, and likely never will be updated to Intel code. To do so just for the sake of running Office 2004 is a waste of time and money. Just get Office 2011.

It may be expensive and inefficient, but anyone who uses the new word and powerppoint programs compared to the 2004 version, knows exactly what I'm talking about. For making documents (word and ppt) with inserted diagrams and pictures and wants to annotate them understands that the system requires usually several more steps and others changes are not duplicated, such as the continuum in adjusting the brightness and density of a picture.

duncanfitzgerald wrote:

It may be expensive and inefficient, but anyone who uses the new word and powerppoint programs compared to the 2004 version, knows exactly what I'm talking about. For making documents (word and ppt) with inserted diagrams and pictures and wants to annotate them understands that the system requires usually several more steps and others changes are not duplicated, such as the continuum in adjusting the brightness and density of a picture.

Move on. I'll bet there are people out there saying 1980's operating systems are better than current operating systems. Because there are a few who refuse to keep current does not mean that manufacturers should continue supporting outdated technology. Using your reasoning I imagine there would still be a lot of leaded gas available for those who think leaded gas was better than unleaded gas.

You can buy Office 2008 for the Mac for less than half the price of 2011. It works fine on Mountain Lion. The price of 2008 is about the same price as Parallels. 2008 works for me. I looked at the alternatives, including Apple's Numbers, but I couldn't find one that had the same functionality as Excel 2008, so I went for MS Office Mac 2008. That gave me desired functionality and minimum cost.

The cheapest approach (not buying additional software) is to just add a partition to your hard drive and install SL on it to continue to use Office 2004. But, in my book, Office 2011 is a superior product compared to Office 2004.

BobTheFisherman wrote:.

...Using your reasoning I imagine there would still be a lot of leaded gas available for those who think leaded gas was better than unleaded gas.

Actually leaded gas is better than unleaded gas; the exhaust fumes just poisons children...