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Tutorial: Remedying Microsoft Office (2008 for Mac) Setup Assistant Infinite Loop Woe

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Microsoft Office

If you are a user of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and have installed Office 2008 SP1, you may have encountered an infinite loop woe causing you to see Microsoft Office Setup Assistant window over and over. A simple solution is to reinstall Office 2008. If you are lucky, you will never see the Setup Assistant window like the one shown in Screenshot 01. If you are not, even after installing updates, you will never get to launch Office applications.

Microsoft Office Setup Assistant 2008 update SP1 infinite loop
Screenshot 01 – Source: MacHouse		   Microsoft Office Setup Assistant 2008 update SP1 infinite loop
Screenshot 02 – Source: MacHouse		   Microsoft Office Setup Assistant 2008 update SP1 infinite loop
Screenshot 03 – Source: MacHouse

Actually, Microsoft says you can stop this infinite loop woe by removing two files. One is located at

User > Library > Preferences > Microsoft > Office 2008 >

, you need to trash the file titled Microsoft Office 2008 settings.plist (See Screenshot 04.) The other file that you need to trash is located at

Applications > Microsoft Office 2008 > Office > (See Screenshot 05.)

Microsoft Office Setup Assistant 2008 update SP1 infinite loop
Screenshot 04 – Source: MacHouse		   Microsoft Office Setup Assistant 2008 update SP1 infinite loop
Screenshot 05 – Source: MacHouse		   Microsoft Office Setup Assistant 2008 update SP1 infinite loop
Screenshot 06 – Source: MacHouse

The file is titled OfficePID.plist. After deleting these two files, double-click on one of the Office applications. After entering the product key (See Screenshot 06.), you will get to use Office applications. If you have trouble locating the files, you may want to watch the following short video tutorial with no audio commentary.  Continue reading →