mac

An easier resolution to the issue of “Microsoft [program] cannot be opened because of a problem” error when you start an Office program

Posted on by Forrest Corbett — Posted in Techknow

microsoft office updater Microsoft provides several methods of fixing this issue, but they missed a rather easy one – Run the latest updater.

I usually don’t use PowerPoint, so the last time I installed Microsoft Office for Mac (2011) I didn’t install PowerPoint. Recently I needed PowerPoint, so I grabbed the Office installer and installed only PowerPoint. When I tried to launch PowerPoint, I got the error “Microsoft PowerPoint cannot be opened because of a problem”

I tried running the Microsoft AutoUpdate app, but it didn’t find any updates. I tried restarting the app a couple more times, and the issue persisted.

Then I searched for the issue, and found a Microsoft support page detailing three possible resolutions. The first two were non-issues and thus didn’t help at all. The third is to uninstall and reinstall Office. But I don’t really want to do that. I would probably lose things like my Lync history, Outlook settings… and I really just didn’t want to go through all that.

The answer? Just download the last Microsoft Office Update and run that. I quit all my Office apps, ran the updater, then launched PowerPoint and it worked. My Outlook settings and filters are all still intact.

Clearly, I did this running OS X (10.9.1 to be exact.) This may work for Windows instances of this error as well, I’m not sure. And I can’t say for sure that this fixes all instances of this error. It fixed it for me.

Find what’s taking up space on your Mac hard drive – Disk Inventory X

Posted on by Forrest Corbett — Posted in Techknow

I’ve got several more polished posts that I’m finishing up on. But not all my entries have to be perfect and completely unique, right?

So here’s one for Mac users who want to figure out what’s taking up space on their hard drive. Recently I installed a couple more gigs of RAM in my MacBook Pro, and I notice my free HD space got even smaller. Unbeknownst to me, a couple years ago Apple introduced a new feature for portables called “Safe Sleep“… but I didn’t know that until I scoured my HD and found a file named “sleepimage” that was taking up 4GB of space.

There are several apps out there to help you locate files based on size. Continue reading →