Microsoft Office X does & doesn't work on my Mac Book.

March 21, 2007 3:13 PM

Microsoft Office X Doesn't work on my Mac Book, but sometimes it does. Why?

I reloaded the Suite after switching from my Powerbook and when I click on a .doc/.xls/.ppt email attachment it says, "Your Test Drive Is Over...Options to Buy/Delete etc."

But when I open Word and do File>Open, I can access the document fine.

What can I do to remedy this?

posted by UncleHornHead to computers & internet (6 answers total)

your files associatios are probably set to automatically open office docs with the office X demo that came with your macbook. when you install office x retail, it didn't for whatever reason set itself as the default app for opening office docs. also, installing the full version does not uninstall the demo. so osx tries to open all your docs with the demo instead of with the retail version. you'll have to reassign your file associations. i'll be back after i remind myself of how to do that.
posted by shmegegge at 3:17 PM on March 21, 2007

You probably have two copies of Office installed... your own personal version that you installed, and an "Office Test Drive" demo that came installed on your new computer. When you are opening files, it is auto-opening them with the demo instead of with your version.

Try right-clicking (control-clicking) on an office file in the desktop, hold option, and look for the "Always open with..." option. Then try to find your version of Office to associate it with. You'll have to do this once for every document type.

Does that work?
posted by stilly at 3:20 PM on March 21, 2007

yeah, what stilly said, as far as associating them. alternately, you can select an office document and hit apple(or command)+i to see the file properties. then in there you'll find that "always open with..." drop down box he was talking about. make sure it doesn't say anything like "office test drive" or demo or whatever. It should just say "Microsoft Word" for word documents. And then you'll have to do that on an excel spread sheet, and a powerpoint document, and any other type of document you've got. but once you do it for one of them, any other document of that specific type will also be associated.
posted by shmegegge at 3:28 PM on March 21, 2007

Delete the "Test Drive" folder from your Applications folder. You don't need it and it's in the way.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:46 PM on March 21, 2007

I had the exact same problem. I did exactly what blazecock said to do and that resolved the problem entirely.
posted by bkeene12 at 7:13 PM on March 21, 2007

Maybe this is why I've read that it's important you uninstall the Test Drive before installing the full thing. (How Microsoft is that advice?)
posted by Brainy at 6:16 AM on March 22, 2007