Re: Entourage Identity Crisis?

Entourage has been restored.

>>There were some database rebuild fixes added so I advice you upgrade.

This suggestion didn't work. Office 2008 12.0.0 would not permit the
upgrade to Office 2008 SP1.

Multiple attempts at restoring the Office 12.0.0 database would not open
under 12.0.0. Installing 12.0.0 over top of itself didn't cure any
problems either. I couldn't go backward or forward.

It seemed logical to uninstall Office 2008 using the Microsoft Remove
Office tool. [ Judging by the subsequent results, it really doesn't
uninstall everything. This is similar to a Windows uninstallation - lots
of remnants are still hanging around. For instance, the Office Product ID
# didn't change after reinstallation, which always occurred when I deleted
Office preferences. ]

I strongly suspect that the Office database was NOT damaged. The Office
2008 application was probably damaged, and couldn't properly read the
database.

Upon re-installation, after "uninstallation," Office 2008 worked. I was
then able to merge the old identity with the new identity - with some
minor naming problems. All the old folders are subfolders under an
Entourage folder named Main Identity 1.rge.

Lessons Learned:
1. Office 2008 is probably somewhat unstable under Tiger, relative to
previous Office versions. I suspect that is one reason for the LARGE SP1
upgrade. It might be unstable under Leopard too, but I have no way of
knowing that from first hand experience.
2. Microsoft seems to be retrogressing Mac Office in many ways. Office is
becoming bloatware, without meaningful improvements, particularly in
stability and the user interface ergonomics found in Office for Windows.
It probably needs to be rewritten from the ground up - I strongly suspect
a LARGE case of "spaghetti code." It is slower than Office 2004.
3. One "simple" bootable backup is probably not adequate to prevent
problems like this from reoccurring. It's probably a good idea to ex****t
the entire database frequently if you don't want to loose valuable data. A
secondary backup is required.

Thanks for all the help everyone provided. I hope this experience can help
other people.