Microsoft KB Archive/189376

= OFF98: Contents of the Microsoft Office 98 Updater Read Me =

Article ID: 189376

Article Last Modified on 10/2/2002

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Office 98 for Macintosh

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This article was previously published under Q189376



SUMMARY
The Microsoft Office 98 Updater contains a Read Me file describing the changes made by the updater. This article lists the contents of the Read Me file.



MORE INFORMATION
Contents of the Microsoft Office 98 Updater Read Me ---

The Microsoft Office 98 Updater addresses a security issue in Microsoft Office 98 Macintosh Edition. This problem is caused by the way Office 98 allocates space on the disk for file storage. The Mac OS - like many other OS' file systems - does not erase files when you delete them; it simply removes the reference to them and marks the space they occupied as "free." Office 98 does not initialize disk space the Mac OS allocates for a File Save operation; therefore, a small amount of unused space in the file may contain random data from previously deleted files. While the data cannot be viewed when opened as a native Office file, it can be viewed using an ASCII text editor.

This Updater changes the behavior of Microsoft Office and OLE to initialize the disk space before saving to it, thereby erasing any extraneous data.

The following files are updated:

- Microsoft Office First Run - Visual Basic for Applications - Microsoft PowerPoint - PP Translator 8-4

The Microsoft Office 98 Updater updates your copy of Microsoft Office 98 in two steps. The first step updates the included files. The second step runs the new "Microsoft Office First Run" file, which then copies the new "Microsoft OLE Library," "Microsoft Structured Storage," and "Microsoft Component Library" files to your Extensions folder.

Important notes about this Updater:

- If you do not have a copy of "Microsoft Office First Run" on your target machine, this Updater will not run correctly. You will receive a message saying that this file was not found.

This might occur if you have deleted the First Run file, or if you are running Office 98 from the CD or from a network volume.

To run the Updater in this case, you must first copy the "Microsoft  Office First Run" to your local hard disk. Then run the Updater. After the Updater is finished and First Run has copied the new OLE files to  your Extensions folder, you may then delete the First Run file.

- If you have multiple copies of the files the updater is trying to patch, you will be asked to choose which copy you want modified. You can run the Updater multiple times if you want to patch more than one copy of  these files.

- This copy of Microsoft OLE Updater is designed to work only with the English language version of Microsoft Office 98. If you try to run this patch against other language versions, you will receive errors and your files will not be properly updated. Check the Microsoft Office 98 web page at

http://www.microsoft.com/macoffice/productinfo/98dl/offi98patch.htm

for the version of the Microsoft Office 98 Updater that matches your copy of Microsoft Office 98.

- We recommend you close other running applications before running this Updater.

Additional query words: OFF98 security extraneous

Keywords: kbinfo KB189376

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