OFF98: Contents of the Microsoft Office 98 Updater Read Me (189376)

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Contents of the Microsoft Office 98 Updater Read Me
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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.