What a terrible disappointment! Never before since 1984 have I switched back to an older software version as I did this time. After installing Office 2008 back in February 2008, I tried to live with its flaws. Among the worst are the data losses and more recently (since the SP 1 update) the inability to open automatically (by double clicking) other Office documents received via email. I got tired of having to add back the data lost in the Excel forms I use at work. I got tired of having to go to File > Open and select a document I had received and then have to save it again so that next time I could double click it to open it.

Office 2008 reminds me of another bad Office edition, the infamous version 6!

Be very careful if you choose to use this application. I did it one and went through a lot of trouble when one Apple update came up. Since I had removed several languages that I don't use, I could not get Apple to update one of its components. I can't recall exactly which one it was, but I think it was iChat. Because there were components missing, the update for that application would not work. If you don't want several language files added to your Mac, do that during a system installation. Do a custom install and pick the languages you want.

This offers the easiest way to synchronize my Macs with Thunderbird.