Apple Combo Updater and Entourage
If you are troubleshooting, applying the Apple combo updater might help with your MS Office application problems. Running the combo updater overwrites potentially problem-causing files. Several users have reported this fixed some odd problems they were having with Entourage and other MS Office applications.
Leopard:
Mac OS X 10.5.5 Combo Update: 601 MB updated September 15, 2008
Tiger:
The Mac OS X 10.4.10 Update (combo) updates any version of Mac OS X 10.4.x to version 10.4.11 updated 01/05/08...I try to keep this updated, but always check for the newest updater.
Mac OS X 10.4.11 Combo Update (PPC)
Mac OS X 10.4.11 Combo Update (Intel)
Apple updates available from the Software Update application are incremental updates. Delta updates are also incremental updates and are available from Apple Downloads (software updates are generally smaller than delta updates). The Combo updates contain all incremental updates and will update files that could have become corrupted.
Combo updaters will install on the same version as they're applying--no need to roll back or do a clean install. So if you think you've got a borked 10.4.10 install from a regular update, just run the 10.4.10 Combo Updater on that system.
"Delta" updaters can only take you from one version to the next. For example: 10.4.8 to 10.4.9. If somehow the 10.4.8 is missing something it should have, and that something isn't changed between 10.4.8 and 10.4.9 it will still be stale after the delta update.
- Run Repair Permissions before any Apple update
- Use Apple's Disk Utiltiy to Repair or Verify your drive
- Restart after running update
- Run Repair Permissions again
If running the Apple combo updater and installing (then updating) Office after using "Remove Office", does not work, then the user should do an Archive & Install of the OS.
Caution: Before any update, users should backup everything. For Office, an easy way to do this is to stuff a copy of the Office folder. To be doubly safe, stuff your Entourage Identity folder located in the ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data folder. Installs and Updates are not supposed to touch your data, but in rare circumstances it can happen.
User Recommended third party software used to revert to pre-update state:
If you have experienced problems with updates of any kind and want to revert to your last version, check out SuperDuper! Price: $27.95 . One of the options is to create what the author calls "Sandbox". Here's a description of how this option works:
A Sandbox is a bootable copy of your system, stored on another hard drive or partition, that shares your personal documents and data with the original. With SuperDuper!, you actually use the Sandbox as your startup volume. You can safely install any system updates, drivers or programs in the Sandbox, without worrying about what might happen to your system. If anything goes wrong, you can simply start up from the original system. SuperDuper! has preserved it in its original, pre-disaster state but all your new and changed personal documents are totally up to date. Within minutes, you're up and running again without having to go through a difficult and time-consuming restore process.