I'm uninstalling Microsoft Office 2011 from a rather new MacBook running 10.8.4, and Microsoft's website says to delete (among others) all files beginning with com.microsoft located in /private/var/db/receipts/.
I've read that in general it's inadvisable to delete such files (.bom's and .plist's) from your receipts folder willy-nilly, since it could affect other software or the OS. But since I'm not running any other Microsoft software on this machine, and since Microsoft recommends deleting them, I suppose it's safe in this case.
However, I found what appear to be duplicates of those files (same names, permissions, sizes, etc.) located in /var/db/receipts/, which Microsoft's site doesn't mention. I'm wondering if it's safe to delete (or even move) these as well, and I'd be curious to know the purpose of these two different directories.
For reference, the files Microsoft says to delete (abridged list, there are 76 in total):
$ ls -l /private/var/db/receipts/ | grep "microsoft"
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 53798 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.mau.all.autoupdate.pkg.2.3.3.bom
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 395 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.mau.all.autoupdate.pkg.2.3.3.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 159800 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.merp.all.errorreporting.pkg.2.2.8.bom
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 405 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.merp.all.errorreporting.pkg.2.2.8.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 35959 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.office.all.clipart_search9.pkg.14.2.0.bom
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 423 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.office.all.clipart_search9.pkg.14.2.0.plist
...
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 38552 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.office.en.word_wizards.pkg.14.2.0.bom
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 415 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.office.en.word_wizards.pkg.14.2.0.plist
The files they didn't mention (again, there are 76 total):
$ ls -l /var/db/receipts/ | grep "microsoft"
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 53798 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.mau.all.autoupdate.pkg.2.3.3.bom
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 395 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.mau.all.autoupdate.pkg.2.3.3.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 159800 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.merp.all.errorreporting.pkg.2.2.8.bom
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 405 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.merp.all.errorreporting.pkg.2.2.8.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 35959 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.office.all.clipart_search9.pkg.14.2.0.bom
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 423 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.office.all.clipart_search9.pkg.14.2.0.plist
...
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 38552 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.office.en.word_wizards.pkg.14.2.0.bom
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 415 Sep 10 21:54 com.microsoft.office.en.word_wizards.pkg.14.2.0.plist
And I stumbled across another unmentioned location, which I wonder about (what it is and is it safe to remove it?):
$ ls -l /private/tmp/ | grep "Microsoft"
drwxrwxrwx 3 root wheel 102 Apr 2 2012 Microsoft
$ ls -l /private/tmp/Microsoft/
total 8
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root wheel 6 Apr 2 2012 launch
Please let me know what you think. Thanks!
