Office 365 Service Is Listening (And i Can't Get It To Quite Listening!)

[PGB1]

Good Day To All!
February has officially become Problems With The Computers Month around my house. The latest upset involves Microsoft Office.

I have Office 2011 on my MacBook Pro (Running OS X 10.6.8). It is a purchased copy, not the 365 service. I have never subscribed to 365 Service (and truthfully never heard of it until this problem surfaced.)

The problem is that Activity Monitor shows that a program called Office365Service is running. Further inspection shows that it starts whenever any Office program is opened and does not end until the computer is restarted.

Activity Monitor shows Real Memory usage to vary from 3.2 to 28 mb, even when no Office programs were running. If I look in /private/var/log and view the file Daily.out I can find entries titled "Office365Service Is Listening From 127.0.0.1:1538 proto = 6"

Sometimes there are hundreds of these entries in a row, sometimes only 5 or 6.

I started by asking at the Microsoft forums for Office 2011, Office 365 and a general forum. A member tired hard to help, but had no luck. His conclusion was that it does not belong, but he could not find out how to get rid of it.

I made sure Word-Preferences-Feedback was turned off. That didn't help.
I also use only Word & Excel. Outlook is not installed, so it is not a Mail gathering thing going on.

Next, I removed the application titled "Office 365 Service.app" from the Applications/Microsoft Office/Office folder. That turned out to be not a good idea. Any Office program would crash a couple of minutes after starting. I had to put it back.

Attaced are screen shots of where Activity Monitor showed me to find the file & a piece of the Daily Out log file.

Do any of you have any ideas how to get rid of this resource hog (and log file clogger-upperer)?
Also, just for fun, what is the world is is "listening" to?

Thanks Very Much for your suggestions & advice! They are appreciated,
Paul

 

[chscag]

Get used to it Paul, it's normal. Microsoft added the 365 service some time back in one of their updates. Unfortunately I don't remember which one it was, but that's been the norm for well over a year now.

The problem is that the Office 365 subscription includes a copy of Mac Office 2011 along with the Windows version (Office 2013). The two are one and if you run Mac Office 2011 you're actually also running parts of Office 365. The next time you restart your computer after you've been using Word, you'll notice several unusual entries in your Trash. Check them closely and you'll see one of them refers to an Office 365 recovery file.

And by the way, the forums are sending you a bill for services rendered. ;P

Have fun.

 

[harryb2448]

On This Page
Microsoft has released the Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.4.8 update. In addition to the application improvements that are mentioned in this article, Office for Mac 2011 is now available as a subscription offering. For more information about subscription, see Frequently Asked Questions.


Hmm very interesting. chscag on the last Office 2011 update, the above appeared and I was concerned about the 'subscription offering' and faq did not provie enough information for me so I did not update and thus do not have these problems.

Think it came with 14.4.8 released on 15 February?

 

[chscag]

Think it came with 14.4.8 released on 15 February?

No, I don't think so Harry. I've been seeing that Office 365 reference stuff since more than a year ago. MS sneaked it in with a previous update. But the fact that Office 2011 for the Mac is available as a subscription was not well known until MS revealed that Mac users who subscribed to Office 365 would get a copy along with Office 2013 for Windows.

 

[PGB1]

Thank You Chscag & Harryb2448 for taking the time to reply with interesting information.

I did a restart & looked in trash for the items you mentioned Chscag. Nothing was showing. I checked with hidden files showing. Nothing. Beats me why they aren't there on my computer. I was just curious (and finding an excuse to delay shoveling the morning snow...)

So, my not-so-genius idea of removing Office & re-installing won't get rid of the problem unless I don't do the updates. I think having the security updates is important, so ditch and reinstall is out.

Caution! Whining & Complaining Below..
I don't mind that Microsoft is "listening" to me (sometimes cuss at them), but I'm not too crazy about the billion and six entries making my Daily.out file huge. (Mixed in with usual "Stealth Connection Attempt" entries from who knows where.) Nor do I cherish the fact that is is using network resources 'listening'.

I am more disappointed about Activity Monitor showing that the service is using Real Memory and Virtual Memory when no Office program is open. I only have 2GB, so I hate to see it wasted. Perhaps it is time up add more RAM? Any suggestions who the preferred places to buy RAM are?

I suppose, to get the RAM free, can get in the habit of going to Activity Monitor and force quitting the service after I close an Office program. (Doing it while using an Office program causes open Office programs to abruptly close.)

It seems odd that since users who bought (i.e. Paid For) a physical copy on a disk of Office 2011 (not 365) must have RAM and bandwidth used for something we do not get benefit from. But, I suppose that's one of the requirements for using the program (and it is not mentioned in the license agreement. I looked. Boy am I trying hard not to shovel the snow...)

As far as sending the bill for services that you mentioned Chscag, please send it to: Accounts Payable Department, Attn: W. G. 1 Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98502
Be sure to add something extra for yourself & HarryB

Enjoy Today!
Paul

 

[chscag]

Perhaps it is time up add more RAM? Any suggestions who the preferred places to buy RAM are?

Definitely add more memory if you can. You can find out the maximum memory your machine can hold by looking up its specs by using Mactracker. (free) Buy your memory from either OWC or Crucial. Amazon.com sells Crucial memory and it's usually less expensive.

As far as sending the bill for services that you mentioned Chscag, please send it to: Accounts Payable Department, Attn: W. G. 1 Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98502
Be sure to add something extra for yourself & HarryB

LOL, MS should be sending me a monthly allotment after all the work I've done for them over the years using Windows and now OS X. ;P

 

[PGB1]

"LOL, MS should be sending me a monthly allotment after all the work I've done for them over the years using Windows and now OS X."
Fun to fix others' mess-ups for free isn't it? (But we appreciate it)

Thanks for the sources for RAM. I got confused while shopping. OWC's page sent me to the correct part & reports this MBP can use 6 GB.

Ideally, I'd get 6 GB and an SSD, then upgrade to Yosemite.

Really Ideally-
I'd get a spanking new MacBook Pro jam packed with RAM and an SSD drive. A 17" would be good for these old-guy eyes.

My wife laughed the other day when she saw that the letters on my key caps were worn off & the paint was gone where my wrist rests. (Someday...)