Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.3 (#4): More Sync Services issues; Another fix for Spotlight/Entourage

More Sync Services issues We continue to report on issues concerning Microsoft's implementation of Apple Sync Services compatibility in Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.3.

As explained yesterday, you can set Entourage to overwrite entries contained in the Sync Services database when first synchronizing. However, doing so may cause problems, as Entourage's information may not translate properly into the Sync Services database.

MacFixIt reader David Rienzo writes:

"For me, sync services does not work. I am trying to sync my calendar only, and I have selected the "Replace Sync Services items with Entourage items" option, hoping to primarily echo my Entourage calendar items to iCal. Nothing happens. Well, that's not true - a calendar titled 'Entourage' shows up in iCal, but no events are posted to it. After a few minutes, the fan on my PowerBook comes on, and when I look at Activity Monitor, it is pegged, and the Microsoft Sync Services process is using all available CPU capacity. If I force that process to quit, soon my fan goes off, and life gets back to normal."

Chess Edwards adds:

"I have synced my Entourage Calendar with iCal. Everything looks good in iCal. But, when I then sync to my iPod via iTunes - all of my 'All-Day Events' show up on the ipod twice. Once on the proper day and once on the day before. Both show a time stamp of 4:00 PM. Who knows where it gets that random time? This only happens with All-Day Events including all holidays that I imported into Entourage using their automatic holiday import function. I have tried everything I can think of when setting up both Entourage and iCal preferences in regard to what are considered the 'work day' hours. Nothing works."

Another fix for Spotlight/Entourage Yesterday we noted an issue where Spotlight does not properly search Entourage data after the update (one of the intended enhancements in this release) along with several fixes.

MacFixIt reader Clive Williamson now offers another fix -- making sure that the "Events and Todo Items" selection in Spotlight's System Preferences pane is checked.

Clive writes:

"If you go into Spotlight preferences and select the search results tab, you need to make sure that tabs for Events and Todo items and for contacts are selected. This is slightly counterintuitive as the icons suggest that they are for Address Book and iCal, and not for Entourage. As soon as I'd done this the indexing in Spotlight started to include Entourage."

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

Previous coverage:

• Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.3 (#3): Problems with Sync Services; Getting Spotlight to work with Entourage
• Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.3 (#2): Security vulnerabilities patched in this release; Spotlight issues; Update will not install; more
• Microsoft releases Office 2004 11.2.3

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