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Don’t Remove Office 98!


Microsoft is warning users of Microsoft Office 98 of a situation that can result in a Macintosh being rendered temporarily inoperable. The Office 98 CD includes a utility called Remove Office 98 that moves the Microsoft Office 98 folder to the Trash. It also looks for a library called Microsoft Office 98 and moves that to the Trash. Normally, the Microsoft Office 98 library lives in the Microsoft Office 98 folder, but if you have manually moved the Microsoft Office 98 library to the Extensions folder (as you might have done – unnecessarily – if you double-clicked the library and were told that libraries should be placed in the Extensions folder) and then run the Remove Office 98 utility from the Value Pack folder on the CD, the utility mistakenly moves the System Folder to the Trash instead of the Microsoft Office 98 folder. After this, to boot the Mac, you’ll have to use a separate boot disk (floppy, CD, or hard disk), at which point you can retrieve the System Folder from the Trash to restore the Mac to working order. Microsoft is working on a fix and will post an updated Remove Office 98 utility soon on the Office 98 Web site.

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