Microsoft Office 2011 Mac 64 bit upgrade

Anonymous
2018-04-17T05:17:01+00:00

I purchased Microsoft Office 2011 along with the purchase of my MacBook.  I did an upgrade yesterday only to find that Office 2011 will only run on 32 bit.  The upgrade now requires Microsoft Office to run on 64bit.  I read in many places that Microsoft has no intentions of supporting this upgrade so therefore, I can no longer safely use this software, that I purchased, on my mac.  Microsoft is forcing me to purchase something I have already purchased earlier.  I do not care if there are newer versions of Microsoft Office.  I purchased Office 2011 and Microsoft should still honor that purchase by providing the 64bit upgrade.  I contacted support thru their chat box and was only directed to this site where I can look up or post my own questions.  Really great customer support Microsoft! Thank-you! NOT.  I wish to have a refund or a product key to another Microsoft Office that will run on Mac at 64bit. I'll be holding my breath awaiting even more outstanding customer service.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Install, redeem, activate | For home | Other

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

132 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2019-11-28T21:26:59+00:00

    Hi May,

    I just had the same thing happen to me were when I tried to open Microsoft Word, a screen came up asking if I wanted to purchase Microsoft Office 365.  Like you I didn't want to do this and wanted to continue to use Microsoft Office 2011.  

    Long story short, if you go into Finder, select Applications, and scroll down you'll see a "Microsoft Word.app" listed, and also a "Microsoft Office 2011 folder/icon".  The copy of the Word app you are seeing at this level is the one that is bringing up the screen asking you to purchase Microsoft Windows 365. Now if you select the Microsoft Office 2011 folder/icon, you will see another app down at the next level with the same name "Microsoft Word. app".  This is your original 2011 app.  Note, this situation will be true for all your 2011 apps such as Excel, Powerpoint, etc.

    Now to fix your problem, go back up to the Application level and delete the "Microsoft Word. app" at this level (and the Excel app, Powerpoint app, etc, while you're at it.)  To the delete the app, just select Settings and Move to Trash.  Btw, don't forget to empty your trash afterwards, it will same you a lot of storage space on your hard drive.

    Happy Computing,

    Charlie

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2019-10-17T13:49:37+00:00

    "To your situation, you can try asking your local Apple store to regress the software back to Mojave."

    Just thinking loud here: anyone tried the VM approach?If you are running Catalina then you have a decent machine. You can make an iso image of your 32 bits-friendly Mac OS and run it on the VM, then run Office 2011 on the VM. 

    Performance-wise, Word is not too demanding (beside the Microsoft garbage collection spinning wheel for masochists). And legally, you are allowed to run a Mac OS on a VM ... as long as it is on a Mac :-) https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6135949. 

    Just food for thoughts. I'm sure someone has tried it out and can confirm?

    Thanks - Gilles

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2019-10-10T17:55:12+00:00

    That was well said .

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2019-04-16T22:23:03+00:00

    Mac OS Mojave is an upgrade from High Sierra, so apparently High Sierra was 32 bit

    and Mojave is 64 bit.  I can check with Apple, but your message says that my version of Office should work forever.  Thanks for your help, but I'm not certain that is true.

    MacOS has had 64bit support for a long time.

    Support for 64 bit was added on version 10.5 - leopard - 2007. A long time ago but you could run both 32 and 64 bit applications . Mac OS are going to get rid of the 32 bit support soon which is why this is a problem for people like us who bought the 32 bit version of Office.

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2018-11-05T18:04:45+00:00

    I don't want to keep both versions. As far as you know, should I first run the 2011 removal tool and then install 2019, or viceversa?

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments