Prevents the Microsoft Office 4.2.x installer from creating a Microsoft folder in the root level of your hard drive.
Um, why would you ever use Microsoft Office 4.2.x?
I wouldn't. :-) But installing Office and making it work on several hundred computers is unfortunately part of my job at the University of Michigan. Pity me.
Ok, so why's this patch necessary?
If you run the Office 4.2.1 installer straight from the CD, it happily installs itself — all 100 megs of itself — onto your hard drive. It also has the audacity to create a folder named “Microsoft” directly in the root level of your hard drive with all of its cockeyed support files. (Previous versions had placed this folder safely away in the System Folder where it wasn’t in the way, which is where it SHOULD be anyway) Well, what happens if you move the Microsoft folder yourself? I mean, it's a Mac, right?
To answer, here’s a little background on the way the Microsoft RegDB works on the Mac: When the RegDB is created during the installation process, it encodes file locations in two different ways: with the full pathname, and with the directory ID of the enclosing folder. If both of those happen to change, well, sorry pal, you’re screwed. Microsoft Office will never be able to find anything ever again. Hope you don't need the spell checker in Microsoft Word, or any of the add-ins in Excel, or the clip art in PowerPoint... (by the way, Apple’s documentation practically SCREAMS that you shouldn’t rely on full pathnames on the Mac, or directory IDs, but instead use the alias manager, which is a system-level service that’s been around since 1991 and is a great deal more robust. Which just goes to show that Microsoft programmers are idiots.)
So after you run the installer, the RegDB is full of pathnames expecting the Microsoft folder to be in the root directory. So you can see that by moving the Microsoft folder into the system folder — which we HAD to do for our lab setup — you’ve already got one strike against you. Then try coming up with a way to get this thing distributed to 300 active lab machines without having the directory IDs change. (don’t think too hard; I'll give you a hint, it can’t be done.)
Maybe Microsoft tech support could help? Ha!! in your dreams… Nope, they essentially told us to fuck off because what we wanted “wasn’t supported” and rather that we should be running this 100-meg piece of junk off our already heavily-loaded AppleShare servers. (Excuse me!?)
The compromise was to let the directory IDs change, but don’t change the pathname. But the Microsoft folder was still in the root level of the hard drive!! This was a major problem for us. Well, then one night some crazy inspiration struck — maybe it was too many Corn Puffs — and voila! The Microsoft Installer Patch was born.
Technical Info
Basically what it does is patch the File Manager, and catch all file accesses from the Microsoft Setup application. Any that are destined for a folder named Microsoft in the root level of the hard drive are automatically redirected to inside the system folder. Then magically when the RegDB is being created, it puts in the path to the new folder which is within the system folder, and you don’t end up with an ugly Microsoft eyesore sticking out in the root level of your hard disk.
It’s really kind of an ugly hack, and I seriously don’t recommend running it for long periods of time. :-) But I’ve successfully installed the complete Office 4.2.1 package several times with the patch running and experienced no problems.
Caveats
Your system folder must be named "System Folder". If you don't like this, the source code is there, change it.
Rant
I hope that anyone who ever seriously considers using Microsoft Office will consider its bloated size, lack of speed, and the cost of frequent upgrades, and then move to another software package. If you don't need exactly 100% of the features that Office provides, I guarantee that you can find something equivalent — and it will occupy 1/6th of the disk space and run more than twice as fast. This patch should only be used as a last resort. I wrote it because I had to get Office working in our computer labs, not because I like it.
See also
Word Fixer — the problem with hard directory IDs doesn’t stop once you fix the RegDB. Surprise! Your spelling checker still doesn’t work! This hack fixes it.
Legal stuff
There’s absolutely no warranty or guarantee whatsoever attached to this patch. Use it at your own risk. It worked for me. Full source is provided, along with a CodeWarrior 9 project.
The Microsoft Installer Patch is hereby placed into the public domain.
