Spacey Snow Leopard (Spaces hiccup)

I'm quite annoyed that Spaces doesn't work after my upgrade to Snow Leopard. I thought I had fixed it. I removed the miscreants Safari, Excel and Word from Spaces and removed their icons from the Dock. (I did the latter because I had renamed the apps using the version number. While I removed that from the app names, it remained in Spaces and in the Dock.) Then I restarted and went back to Spaces and added the apps back.

When I then opened blank documents in Excel and Word, they opened in the proper Space. Safari seems to be fixed. But now, if I open an Excel or a Word document that I had previously created, it opens right over the top of the finder window. I used Spaces in Leopard to avoid that very thing!

There doesn't seem to be a plist for Spaces, so I'm trying to figure out what else to try. I know this is a shot in the dark, since most members have moved on to Mavericks and left SL behind a few years ago. Any ideas out there?

A new observation: Excel opens in the Space I've designated, meaning if it's not running already. Subsequent files opened while Excel is still running open over the Finder window.

Another new observation: this problem is somewhat inconsistent. With Excel open (I use it much more frequently than Word) most files will not open in the Space Excel is assigned to, but once in awhile, some files do. It doesn't seem to matter if there is already another Excel file open, or if all files are closed but Excel is still running.

I've tried experimenting with saving files in the correct Space. That is, if a file opens in the Space that Finder is assigned to, I'll move the file to the Space for Excel and save it. That doesn't seem to be the key. I haven't figured out why some files behave as they used to in Leopard, and some don't.

Alas I think a format and clean install. Personally never go the upgrade route always the clean install.

Actually, I was wondering if an upgrade to Office for Mac 2011 (unless there's a newer version??) from 2004 might be the answer. I will have to make that purchase whenever I buy a new Mac anyway. But first, I'll have to make sure a newer version of Office will run on Snow Leopard.

Is there really nothing short of a clean install to trouble shoot Spaces? Maybe so, as there is no plist for it, as I mentioned above.

Office 2011 will run just fine with Snow Leopard. However, MS is "supposedly" getting ready to refresh Office 2011 with a new version. They've been pushing Office 365 real hard but that's strictly a subscription service - and also Office 2013 which is likewise subscription (web version) only for Mac users. There is an Office 2013 purchase version but it's for Windows and is not that much different from Office 2010.

The problem with your Office 2004 version is that it will not work with any version of OS X later than Snow Leopard. Of course you can always look for a copy of Office 2008 which will work even with Mavericks.

Thanks for the info about Office versions. Now I don't have to dig around online to find out. I figured I was pretty close to the limit with 2004. Any thoughts on whether that is the problem with Spaces? Other ideas? Anyone?

Update for anyone out there still using Snow Leopard and having the same problem with Word and Excel getting "Lost in Space(s)". I've discovered that once the first file is open if I use File > Open to get into another file, it will open in the same (correct) Space as the first file. That works for me!

It's funny though that in Leopard, the files would open in their assigned Space no matter how they were opened, but in SL, they don't. Actually, I don't recall using File > Open in Leopard...