Mac Excel Users Vulnerable to Microsoft Security Flaw

[MacBytes]

Category: 3rd Party Software
Link: Mac Excel Users Vulnerable to Microsoft Security Flaw
Posted on MacBytes.com

Approved by Mudbug

 

[joker2]

requires subscription

Unfortunately, the site requires a subscription, or did when I tried to access it. Any alternate sites where this is mirrored?

 

[iMeowbot]

Here's the Microsoft page with the original report.
http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/200410_office.mspx

[N.B.: This affects both Office v.X and 2004]

Inquirer article covering the story, much more entertaining than the Sydney morning Herald version anyway =)

For the listed story, there's always bugmenot.com

 

[Cooknn]

Inquirer article covering the story, much more entertaining than the Sydney morning Herald version anyway =)

Those guys crack me up

 

[Elan0204]

[N.B.: This affects both Office v.X and 2004]

No, it only affects Office v.X. The security flaw is not present in Office 2004.

Also an update to fix the flaw is now available from Microsoft.

 

[iMeowbot]

No, it only affects Office v.X. The security flaw is not present in Office 2004.

Right, that's versions v.X and 2001. Sorry.

EDIT: I shouldn't have been so quick to say that. Office 2004 does contain the flaw, the patch is in Service Pack 1 as described in KB #883951

Also an update to fix the flaw is now available from Microsoft.

Link already provided above.

 

[Mr_Ed]

I dunno . . . maybe my need for "office" applications is not as serious as other folks, but why would an average Mac OS X user need 'M$ Office' when something like 'OpenOffice.org' is available?

I grant you that I don't do a lot of things with "office" applications so I can't say with absolute certainty there are no problems with it, but I have yet to have a problem exchanging documents with people who use M$ Office.

 

[joker2]

Because we are installing something for our non-techie friends and family members and don't want to spend forever building the darn thing, installing Fink, X11, the window manager, etc... and then having to support it when it goes boom:

From: http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/build_11_X11.html

In the Requirements section:
# approx. 4 GB free HD space for a non-debug build. Source directory: 2.73 GB, setup directory: 104 MB, install directory: 224 MB. For a full debug build, roughly increase the space requirements by 2.5 times.
# A few cases of beer used to pass the time. On a Dual G4/450 the build took about 20 hours. A dual G4/1Ghz should be around 8 - 10 hours.

 

[iMeowbot]

I dunno . . . maybe my need for "office" applications is not as serious as other folks, but why would an average Mac OS X user need 'M$ Office' when something like 'OpenOffice.org' is available?

Document interchange still needs work. If I'm modifying an Office file for a customer, the formatting needs to be intact when I return it. OOo can't reliably provide that yet.

 

[shamino]

I grant you that I don't do a lot of things with "office" applications so I can't say with absolute certainty there are no problems with it, but I have yet to have a problem exchanging documents with people who use M$ Office.

You obviously don't exchange documents with a lot of embedded drawings. I've had far too many of them mangled by OO in the past to ever consider using that program in the future.

 

[Mr_Ed]

Because we are installing something for our non-techie friends and family members and don't want to spend forever building the darn thing, installing Fink, X11, the window manager, etc... and then having to support it when it goes boom:

I don't expect an average user to build it. I didn't. I just installed the binary distribution (.pkg if I recall correctly) of OOo, and X11 was already built into OS X. I agree with you that the use of an X11 application has greater potential for problems with a novice user, but the installation of OOo itself did not seem that different from many other installations I have come across.

As for the other comments on problems with OOo: points well taken. As I said, I am not really a heavy "office" application user.