Yesterday I installed Adobe Creative Suite Premium (purchased using Rona’s phenomenal educational discount), and it’s awesome! For years I used Photoshop 5.5 in Windows, and I’ve been waffling between The Gimp and Graphic Converter on the Mac. I’m ecstatic to have Photoshop once more, and this time it’s version 8.0, with a free upgrade to Photoshop CS 2 on the way soon.
The only problem is that when I tried to open Word today to work on the final chapter of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay book I’m editing, Word kept crashing. Luckily TextEdit can open Word files, so I managed to do a lot of work today without Word, but hey–enough is enough. All my software should work when I tell it to, on this self-professed Greatest of the World’s Operating Systems.
After Googling around some, I narrowed the problem down to four possible preference files. I tried deleting various combinations of them, opening Photoshop, closing it, and trying to open a file in Word. The problem was only solved some of the time, and only temporarily at that. Bummer.
Finally I found an article on mit.edu, and it had my answer, mostly. Since many people seem to have similar trouble with various Office apps on the Mac after installing software or trying to open files with macros, I figured I’d write up the fix, which turned out to be quite simple.
Disclaimer: I’m running OS X version 10.3.9 and Microsoft Office v.X. This is what worked for me, but I can’t say if it will for you, so try it at your own risk.
Office v.X applications on Mac OS X crash after installing software or opening files containing macros.
Solution:
1) Close all running applications. I successfully left Firefox running, but who knows–you might have to close your browser.
2) Locate the file named Office Registration Cache X. One easy way to do this is to open a finder window and start typing the name in the search box (it has a magnifying glass icon and the words "local disks"). The file you want is located in [startup disk] : Users : [your user name] : Libraries : Preferences : Microsoft.
3) Once you find it, just drag it to the trash, or click once to highlight it and type <command>-delete. Don’t empty the trash yet. (Note: For me this wasn’t enough to fix it, though it might be for you. For me at this point Word would still crash if I tried to open a .doc or .rtf file after having opened Photoshop CS. I finally figured out I had to go on to Step 4.)
4) Having just deleted the file Office Registration Cache X and not yet opened any applications, go ahead and open TextEdit (in the Finder click Go>Applications and then double-click TextEdit).
5) Create a new blank file (<command>-n).
6) Click File>Save As…
7) Next to Save As type in Office Registration Cache X, making sure the spelling and capitalization are exact, and with no extension.
You need to save the file in the correct folder. After putting the name in the Save As box (remember Step 7?) type <command>-<shift>-h to select your home folder (located at [startup disk] : Users : [your user name]), and then double-click Library, then Preferences, and then Microsoft.
9) If the file name has ".rtf" as an extension and/or the Format dropdown menu only has Rich Text (RTF) and Word Format as choices, Stop! Click the Cancel button and then in TextEdit select Format>Make Plain Text. Go back to Step 8, and then skip down to Step 10.
10) Er, don’t forget to click the Save button once you’re saving the right file in the right place.
11) In the Finder, Go>Home>Library>Preferences>Microsoft, and highlight the file you just created (Office Registration Cache X.txt in my case) and then <ctrl>-click and select Get Info.
12) Since TextEdit happily reinserted the ".txt" extension I had gone to the trouble of deleting, in the Get Info window I deleted it again. Do that if your file has this extension.
13) Still in the Get Info window, click the checkbox next to Locked. (This will stop the ridiculous loop where the action that caused the trouble in the first place will break your new preference file.)
At least for me, this did the trick, and I can now run Adobe CS and Microsoft Office apps pleasantly side-by-side.
Coming up next… The 1-minute Zoey Update…
May 5th, 2005 at 10:22 am
Thanks Evan, I’ve no doubt I’ll need this as well. I suppose a consequence is also that when you lock a preferences file, you better make sure you like the preferences that are there.
Love,
Dad
June 13th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Dear Evan,
even 4 years after your original posting, this workaround saved me working more hours on this damn problem. Since word 2008 is such a crap, I still run my word X under 10.5.7. and I run into the problem you described and found the workaround!
Best regards, Holger
June 13th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Hi Holger,
Glad I could help!
-Evan