“Today is the day that Apple is releasing El Capitan for users around the globe and if you are thinking about running the latest version of Office 2016 with this new OS, you need to be aware of performance issues,” Brad Sams reports for Thurrott.
“I have been running the GM candidates and the release build of El Capitan since it was first announced by Apple as well as running the release version of Office 2016 for Mac and the experience is atrocious,” Sams reports. “Office 2016 on El Capitan is unstable and virtually impossible to use on my machine; all of the apps crash multiple times a day. To top it off, I have had the error reporting mechanism crash while trying to send my crash log after Outlook bit the dust. The crashing is so bad that I cannot trust the apps to work long enough to accomplish anything meaningful which renders my Mac useless for daily tasks.”
Sams reports, “Make sure to let Microsoft know in its Answer forums so that they see how widespread this issue has become but for now, I would not recommend installing Office 2016 on El Capitan.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Some things never change. Microsoft remains as incompetent as ever. Even their crash reporters crash despite their having access to OS X El Capitan developer, and even public, betas for months.
Duh!
That’s so odd. I’ve been using Office 2016 for months both with the El Capitan Betas, and the GM/Retail and I’ve had 0 issues so far.
I’ve had very few issues as well, nothing like the article is saying and Ive run all the GM’s on both work and personal laptops.
Well, the report is for Thurott so a little FUD is to be expected.
ditto
Wait, people still use MS Office?!
😉
It’s the greatest thing since OfficeVision™.
Museums are still buying it. They’re also buying up other retro/obsolete old-school computer items such as Lotus 123 and MacWrite.
While upgrading to El Capitan is a certainty for me, upgrading to Microsoft Office 2016 sure as heck isn’t in any case. That’s one Microsoft cash scow I refuse to add to again. Plenty of alternatives these days (with the exception of Excel but the old version is just fine).
I agree with your statement, but must take exception with your comment on Excel, ” the old version is just fine.” That may be true in a true Mac environment, but in a cross-platform workplace Macros made on PC .xlsx files EXPLODE in the older Mac Excel, but work fine with the new Office 2016 version.
Rock on, Peter! Totally agree with your sentiment.
I haven’t had an Excel issues in the old version (not having a PC helps) but appreciate your comments/caveats about it.
Typical Microsoft. Get it out the door without fully testing it.
So you’re blaming MS for the problems when the product worked fine before the OS X upgrade? Sounds more like Apple neglected to give MS an advanced copy of OS X to test their Mac products against before releasing and now MS is stuck trying to fix it.
Developers don’t just sit around waiting for Apple to send them beta software. The first El Capitan beta was released July 9. All developers had access to it.
I see your point, but since early access you mention was for a Beta and not Release to Manufacture it is possible any changes made to ‘fix’ something in OS X before the Release version could have inadvertently caused Office to do weird things. How far in advance of public release were developers given access to the release version?
It looks like the final beta was Beta 8, released 8/31. On 9/10 they released the GM, see http://news.softpedia.com/news/os-x-el-capitan-gm-candidate-available-today-491395.shtml
Just like every other software developer, they had plenty of time to fix bugs. People have stated that this bug was present since the first El Capitan beta. They should have identified the problem early on and had a patch ready.
You live and you learn. You upgrade your operating system one day without checking for compatibility. It’s just that normally it would be an obscure developer that doesn’t have time to maintain their aging programs. But Microsoft is a leading software company and is held to a higher standard. They have had months to beta test. They should have been prepared. They shouldn’t have waited until El Capitan was released to begin their work. Many have trusted Microsoft to ensure compatibility. It’s an unfortunate mistake.
Thankfully I didn’t make that mistake this time.
I wonder if he tried simply re-installing it. I didn’t read through the forums, but the author didn’t mention that.
I guess I’ll wait a few months to get Office 2016.
Apple has the $$$. I mean, they’re spending a TON on a car (probably to placate Sir Jony), why don’t they buy MS Office for the Mac? There surely is a number Microsoft would take to make that happen.
There are, I suspect, Trust issues with that.
Everybody did notice that is from Thur-rott Reports, right?? Not the most trusted source of Mac / OS X information.
Of course it’s unstable. It’s from Microsloth! 😛
It’s not just 2016, Office 2011 is just as unstable.
Office 2016 has been a hot mess since its release. It’s far more buggy than its predecessor, constantly crashing unpredictably. This was before El Capitan was released.
I’m surprised he wrote a story based on a sample of . . . one computer.
I’m even more surprised that MDN didn’t even question that.
Agree, XL has been crashing most days. The worst thing is the horrible sending info to Microsoft and relaunching process and alert boxes…argh. Every time it happens I am reminded how much I enjoy using the Mac and why I left Windows.
Bloatware, just don’t do it.
Why am I not surprised? And if you call Microsoft, you’re SOL. Their “support” department is nothing but transfer hell. They will transfer you around over and over again, and then the call will “drop”, meaning that they eventually just hang up on you. It’s patethic.
It will work, once they have successfully installed the NSA flags.
It’s going to be interesting to see just HOW Microsoft screwed up this time. I haven’t heard of any other applications behaving this way on El Capitan. Note that some no longer actually work on El Capitan. But this parade of crashes on 10.11 is something unusual. I’m going to guess it’s an other infamous memory management problem due to Microsoft’s bungled coding.
(Memory management has been a major achilles heal of Microsoft since the days of DOS).