After first advising users on how to work around the flaw, Microsoft has now pulled the Service Pack 2 update for its Office 2011 Mac software in order to find the cause of an issue that was corrupting identity databases in its Outlook e-mail client. Though the SP2 update is still available for manual download, the company has stopped pushing SP2 out using AutoUpdate until it resolves the problem, according to a post on its Office for Mac blog.
The SP2 update was originally issued just over a week ago, meaning many Mac Office users will have already implemented the patch, which offered a raft of improvements to all parts of the productivity suite, including some additional Lion-compatible features such as full-screen mode in PowerPoint. The Mac Office team have offered some workarounds to avoid the issues caused by the flaw for those who have not yet installed SP2, as well as for those who have.
In the former case, users are simply advised to rebuild their Outlook database before applying SP2 — which implies that the problem mainly affects those users whose database many not be in perfect working order. The procedure for restoring the database after SP2 has already been applied is considerably more complicated.
Many users who haven’t yet updated to SP2 may wish to wait until Microsoft issues a revised version that avoids the problem. However, the workaround suggested for those users (rebuilt the Outlook database) is considered a good practice for routine maintenance, provided the user already has an existing backup.
