David Overton's Blog : Support and Tools, PowerPoint

Office 2007 SP1 is here and it does more than just update the desktop - SharePoint gets AJAX for example

David Overton — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:05:00 GMT

I'm sure you have heard that the Office 2007 Service Pack is here. Darren Strange has documented what is in it and how to get it at Office 2007 sp1 ready for download today and OfficeRocker! : More detail about sp1. In answer to Susanne's post at here, hopefully this post has some more info in it

One of the little things he puts that I like is:

Some other factoids about sp1

There are roughly 2500 fixes in SP1. This an average size for a service pack, but the issues fixed are very important to our customers.
Almost 20% of those fixes are direct result of customer requests.
Over 500 of those fixes focused on security.
There are a total of 24 different releases in 38 languages. There are 683 distinct packages. All have released simultaneously today.

If you get the whitepaper then you would be keen to see the information below. Notice that SharePoint amongst other things a developer update to support Ajax and that other server products (Groove and Project Server) are also updated.

Stability

Microsoft continues to improve its software products by listening to customers and acting on customer requests. With the 2007 Microsoft® Office system Service Pack 1 (SP1), Microsoft demonstrates this commitment by fixing at least the top five software bugs in each application that caused crashes, resulting in an even more stable product. The 2007 Office system SP1 also addresses many minor annoyances and distracting problems that users had to contend with in the initial release. Many of these minor usability and stability fixes are in response to customer requests as well. The following section lists summaries of some of the most notable stability improvements delivered with the 2007 Office system SP1.
Access 2007

For third-party applications that use Data Access Object code to synchronize replicated information in a Microsoft Office Access™ 2007 database, Office Access 2007 no longer returns a run-time error that causes the application to close or time out.
Communicator 2007

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 now presents more accurate presence information and does so with consistent visual cues.

The icons used to display presence are modified so that users who are red-green colourblind can determine people’s presence status.
Office Communicator 2007 no longer causes presence icons to flicker when multiple people appear simultaneously.
Presence information in Office Communicator 2007 and other Microsoft Office applications is consistent in all scenarios.
Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 no longer starts in the background along with Office Communicator 2007.

Excel 2007

Several stability, general usability, and compatibility improvements have been incorporated into Microsoft Office Excel® 2007.

Office Excel 2007 no longer stops responding in some instances when opening a workbook containing calculations.
Office Excel 2007 workbooks that are saved in Page Break Preview mode and opened in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 no longer produce an error when switched to Normal view.
When inputting calculations that should result in numbers 65,534 through 65,536, Office Excel 2007 no longer returns the display error of 100,001.
Office Excel 2007 now retains custom colours on shapes in Excel 2003 worksheets.
Office Excel 2007 no longer misplaces or wraps labels in charts when the workbook is reopened.

Groove 2007

For Microsoft Office Groove® 2007, issues surrounding the activation of new and previously retired accounts have been resolved.

Office Groove 2007 no longer places a 60-day limit on retired accounts that are stored in backup files.
When the auto-activation feature is turned on and invited users open an invitation file (.grv), they are no longer prompted for an activation key or notified of an unconfigured account.

InfoPath 2007 and InfoPath Forms Server

Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2007 benefits from a more consistent user experience, especially with online forms.

When users input data into an Office InfoPath 2007 form using a Web browser, the saved changes are now retained after closing and reopening the form.
Font size no longer increases when pasting from one rich text box in Office InfoPath 2007 to another.

Outlook 2007

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 benefits from a number of fixes and enhancements that make the popular messaging client more stable and easier to use.

Office Outlook 2007 no longer closes unexpectedly when the junk e-mail rule is set to null.
Body content in HTML-formatted e-mail messages now appears properly in the preview pane or when the message is opened.
Items moved from an offline folder file (.ost) to a personal folder file (.pst) now display properly in the preview pane.
In search folders, Office Outlook 2007 now shows the accurate count for unread items that are hidden.
When scheduling a resource such as a meeting room in meeting requests, the public free/busy information for the resource is now complete and visible in Office Outlook 2007.
When users forward plain-text e-mail messages with attachments, the body text is now retained.
If the Mailbox Cleanup wizard starts while the user is dragging a message into a folder, Office Outlook 2007 no longer closes unexpectedly.

PowerPoint 2007

Fixes in Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2007 make the presentation application even more reliable, especially when used in conjunction with Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, Web sites that use forms authentication, or event macros.

Users who have started an event macro in Office PowerPoint 2007 can now advance slides by right-clicking and then choosing Next or Previous.
When users try to open a presentation in Office PowerPoint 2007 from a Web site using forms authentication, the presentation will now appear properly.
Users can now open presentations in Office PowerPoint 2007 from e-mail attachments in Office Outlook Web Access.
Office PowerPoint 2007 no longer crashes when the user programmatically accesses the parent property of the Hyperlinks Collection Object in the Office PowerPoint 2007 object model.
Text formatting now behaves similarly to previous versions of PowerPoint, where new text retains the formatting of the deleted text instead of using the formatting of the character to the left.

Project 2007 and Project Server 2007

The 2007 Office system SP1 eliminates instances when either Microsoft Office Project 2007 or the accompanying Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 crashes due to a software error.

Office Project 2007 no longer crashes when users click to view Windows account or Details in the Resources Information dialog box and then perform any other action.
Office Project 2007 does not produce an error message when a link from one task accesses a task in a different project stored on Office Project Server 2007. This error only occurred when the linked project was renamed.
Microsoft Office Project Web Access now makes task IDs available and allows users to enter a work estimate when creating a new task.

SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 has improved manageability and compatibility.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 now has the ability to be installed on Windows Server 2008 providing compatibility and support.
ASP.NET AJAX has compatibility and support with Office SharePoint Server 2007 including examples for customer web parts build the AJAX 1.0 Control Toolkit and the AJAX 1.0 Extensions for ASP.NET (KB 941955)
New manageability with STSADM commands for consolidating or repartitioning your content databases, renaming host named site collections, and the ability to scope the people picker to a specific active directory organizational unit.
Advanced search results now include results with spaces in file names.
The View by Modified Date function now works correctly in search results.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 is now able to crawl case-sensitive Web content on computers not running the Windows® operating system.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 can now index a public folder on a Microsoft Exchange Server with a backslash in the subject.

Visio 2007

Microsoft Office Visio® 2007 now properly redraws shapes when users apply a dynamic connector that is part of a group of shapes in Office Visio 2007.
Word 2007

By taking care of several small stability and usability details, Microsoft Office Word 2007 is a more useful and reliable tool for everyday document creation tasks.

With Office Word 2007, users can now open and edit embedded objects that contain other embedded objects.
When using smart documents in Office Word 2007, the Document Actions task pane no longer disappears when moving the pointer into the Reviewing pane. Additionally, task panes opened earlier no longer appear unexpectedly.
Office Word 2007 properly creates and updates a table of contents in unprotected sections of documents that also contain sections protected for forms.
Office Word 2007 no longer prints an extra page when users choose a printer with the duplex option enabled.

Performance

Many of the improvements delivered in the 2007 Microsoft® Office system Service Pack 1 (SP1) boost application and search performance. The service pack includes performance enhancements for some of the most commonly used applications in the 2007 Microsoft Office system, such as Microsoft Office Access™ 2007 and Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007. Additionally, users that rely on server components for the 2007 Office system and the Japanese Input Method Editor (IME) will see a significant performance increase.
General Performance Fixes

Applications in the 2007 Office system work more effectively with the Japanese IME released by Microsoft, especially when inputting Japanese characters and converting those characters to kanji. In addition, computers that simultaneously run the Japanese IME and a security solution no longer use up to 100 percent of CPU resources.
Access 2007

Project files (.adp) no longer run slower than expected when opened in Microsoft Office Access 2007.
Outlook 2007

Improved performance in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 eliminates frustrating delays when opening large mailbox files and frees office workers to focus on important business tasks. The 2007 Office system SP1 makes it easier to open large offline folder files (.ost) and personal folder files (.pst) that are located directly on the user’s machine.
Project 2007 and Project Server 2007

When adding multiple values to a lookup table in Microsoft Office Project 2007, the application no longer searches for duplicate values in a way that unexpectedly slows performance. Also, users can now quickly retrieve lists of projects from a Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 database.
SharePoint Server 2007

With the 2007 Office system SP1, the performance of Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 improves general server activities and search functionality. An Office SharePoint Server that experiences heavy use no longer slows when a Microsoft .NET Framework hotfix (greater or equal to build 2.0.50727.832) is installed. The service pack also helps reduce the lag time before the start of a document library crawl during a document search in SharePoint.
Security

The 2007 Microsoft® Office system was built from the ground up, with security and privacy as driving design considerations. The 2007 Microsoft Office system Service Pack 1 incrementally improves security in the 2007 Office release by incorporating the latest security research and responding to ongoing application testing results. Individual application fixes that protect people’s privacy complement these improvements to baseline security.

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: If you only read one post today, Office 2007, Office System, SharePoint Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services, Service Pack, Service Pack 1, Outlook 2007, Project 2007, Word 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Excel 2007, Access 2007, Groove, Communicator 2007

Finding out where something is in Office 2007 and where it was in Office 2003 (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access)

David Overton — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 19:43:00 GMT

I saw this recently and thought I had to blog it - if you know something was there in Office 2003 and now can't find it in Office 2007 then look at these spreadsheets to get some advice. The 1st set of links (ms-help:) will work on a machine with Office 2007 installed and the 2nd set pull the data from the Microsoft Office web site.

From the installed help files

Outlook

ms-help://MS.RIBBON.12.1033/RIBBON/outlookmap.xls

Word

ms-help://MS.RIBBON.12.1033/RIBBON/wordmap.xls

Excel

ms-help://MS.RIBBON.12.1033/RIBBON/excelmap.xls

PowerPoint

ms-help://MS.RIBBON.12.1033/RIBBON/powerpointmap.xls

Access

ms-help://MS.RIBBON.12.1033/RIBBON/accessmap.xls

From the Internet

Outlook

http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM101954661033&CTT=5&Origin=HA101934281033

Word

http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM101938681033&CTT=5&Origin=HA100625841033

Excel

http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM101864291033&CTT=5&Origin=HA100860481033

PowerPoint

http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM101923921033&CTT=5&Origin=HA100666231033

Access

http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM101757761033&CTT=5&Origin=HA101666061033

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: Menu, Office 2007, Office 2003, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook

Show Classic Menus and Toolbars on Ribbon of Office 2007 - two product choices

David Overton — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 10:35:17 GMT

I saw a blog entry at Susan Bradley's blog about her now deploying Office 2007 with a classic menu. It was worth of a blog link for all those who want to stick to the old, old ways where you search for items over multiple menus (especially if you turn on personalised menus which hide all the things you don't use regularly). The tool looks slick, but then I found a 2nd one are realised that some cunning ISVs had seen this as their great opportunity to fill a gap that is very unlikely to be filled by Microsoft. The Two solutions are shown below and can be linked to from pschmid.net - RibbonCustomizer™ Feature Tour - Part 3: Classic UI Tabs and Show Classic Menus and Toolbars on Ribbon of Office 2007:

V1.1 Feature Tour - Part 3: Classic UI Tabs

RibbonCustomizer™ V1.1 ships with a set of Classic UI tabs for Excel, PowerPoint and Word 2007. Those tabs emulate the Office 2003 menus and toolbars in Office 2007. We provide these tabs to help you familiarize yourself faster with the new Ribbon User Interface in Office 2007. Please note that the tabs are not intended to be full replacements for the Ribbon. There are no plans to provide similar Classic UI tabs for Access and Outlook 2007. The Classic UI tabs can be used with the free Starter Edition of RibbonCustomizer™. This means that you can get the 2003 menus and toolbars in Office 2007 without having to make any purchase.
The Classic UI tab can be shown as the first tab, as shown in the following Excel 2007 screenshot:

Alternatively, you can show the Classic UI tab as last tab, as again demonstrated in Excel:

You could display the two Classic UI tabs also at the same time.
The Classic UI tab in PowerPoint can be seen in the next screenshot:

The Classic UI tab in Word is next:

pschmid.net - RibbonCustomizer™ Feature Tour - Part 3: Classic UI Tabs

Classic Menu for Office 2007

Frustrated by endless searches for features on the Ribbon? Download and install this software to bring back the familiar menus and toolbars to Microsoft® Office® 2007. The software allows you to work with Office 2007 as if it were Office 2003.
This software includes Classic Menu for Access, Excel, Word and PowerPoint 2007 (Classic Menu for Outlook 2007 will be released in the near future).
Do you need it?

www.Office-Watch.com:
Office 2003 menus come to Office 2007
TechRepublic.com.com:
Add Office 2003 tools and menus to your Office 2007 interface
Deb-Tech:
Office 2007 Classic Menu Add-in gives you the best of both worlds
All the new features in Microsoft Office 2007 have been added into the Main Menu, the Standard Toolbar and Formatting Toolbar. Try it now for free.
Supports all languages that are supported by Microsoft Office 2007 including: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, and more.
Add the menus and toolbars to the Quick Access Toolbar, and you can use Office without the ribbon.

Show Classic Menus and Toolbars on Ribbon of Office 2007

ttfn

David

Technorati Tags: Office 2003, Office 2007, Ribbon, Classic menus in Office 2007, Word, Excel, PowerPoint

May security updates for Server DNS and Office 2003/2007 and IE7. Also Quicktime needs an update

David Overton — Tue, 08 May 2007 20:16:00 GMT

I did a quick scan and it seems that this month Office is the main target of updates, along with one critical one for Windows Server (for DNS RPC attack) and one for IE7. Worth a quick download and install :-)

I also got this in the mail today: Apple QuickTime 7.x must be upgraded to 7.1.5 or higher.

On the security updates:

Microsoft is releasing the following new security bulletins for newly discovered vulnerabilities:

Bulletin Number Maximum Severity Affected Products Impact

MS07-023 Critical Microsoft Excel (all currently supported versions) Remote Code Execution

MS07-024 Critical Microsoft Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 (Mac) Remote Code Execution

MS07-025 Critical Microsoft Office (all currently supported versions) Remote Code Execution

MS07-026 Critical Microsoft Exchange (all current versions) Remote Code Execution

MS07-027 Critical Internet Explorer - all current versions on all currently supported versions of Microsoft Windows Remote Code Execution

MS07-028 Critical CAPICOM, BizTalk Server Remote Code Execution

MS07-029 Critical Windows 2000 (server), Windows Server 2003 Remote Code Execution
Summaries for these new security bulletins may be found at the following pages: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms07-May.mspx Customers are advised to review the information in the bulletins, test and deploy the updates immediately in their environments, if applicable.

Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal ToolMicrosoft is releasing an updated version of the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool on Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Windows Update (WU) and the Download Center. Note that this tool will NOT be distributed using Software Update Services (SUS). Information on the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool can be located here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=40573 High-Priority Non-Security Updates on Microsoft Update (MU), Windows Update (WU), Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and Software Update Services (SUS)Microsoft is also releasing High-Priority NON-SECURITY updates today on WU, MU, SUS and WSUS. For complete details on non-security updates being released today please review the following KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=894199 TechNet Webcast:

Title: Information about Microsoft May Security Bulletins (Level 200)

When: Wednesday, 9 May 2007 11:00 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)

URL: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032327015

Replay: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032327015

ttfn

David

Technorati tags: Security, Office 2007, Office 2003, IE7, SBS 2003

How to open Office 2007 (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007) files on Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003 by downloading the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for File Formats

David Overton — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 23:01:50 GMT

I get asked this question quite often, so I thought I would point out the download location for the tool to make files work between Office 2000, XP, 2003 and 2007. Just to cover off some details - Office 2007 can save in Office 97-2003 file format as well as the new Open XML and PDF file formats. Using this download, files can be opened and saved in Office 2007 format in Office 2000 and later.

Of special note is that if you are using Microsoft Office XP or 2003 you MUST install all High-Priority updates from Microsoft Update before downloading the Compatibility Pack.
Also, if you don't have those Office programs, but you have the viewers (Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003) then you can use the pack to view files saved in these new formats. For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see Knowledge Base article 924074.
Also Note: If you use Microsoft Word 2000 or Microsoft Word 2002 to read or write documents containing complex scripts, please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925451 for information to enable Word 2007 documents to be displayed correctly in your version of Word.
Finally, if you are planning on installing this for lots of users the administrative template for the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint converters contained within the Compatibility Pack is available for download.

thanks

David

Technorati tags: Office 2007, Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Open XML, file compatibility

Office 2007 training for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Office, Access

David Overton — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 00:05:11 GMT

This is the download your own stuff:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT102036981033.aspx - currently 18 slide decks here

Training presentation: Outlook 2007—Create great-looking signatures for your e-mail Rating: (16 votes)

Training presentation: Microsoft Office—Get up to speed with the 2007 system Rating: (85 votes)
Training presentation: PowerPoint 2007—Get up to speed Rating: (101 votes)
Training presentation: Outlook 2007—Get out of your Inbox Rating: (21 votes)
Training presentation: Microsoft Office—Keyboard shortcuts in the 2007 system Rating: (6 votes)
Training presentation: PowerPoint 2007—Create your first presentation Rating: (81 votes)
Training presentation: Access 2007—Get up to speed Rating: (17 votes)
Training presentation: Word 2007—Get up to speed Rating: (55 votes)
Training presentation: PowerPoint 2007—Get visual with SmartArt graphics New! Rating: (7 votes)
Training presentation: Outlook 2007—Calendar basics Rating: (49 votes)
Training presentation: Excel 2007—Create a chart Rating: (29 votes)
Training presentation: Outlook 2007—Get up to speed Rating: (12 votes)
Training presentation: Excel 2007—Get up to speed Rating: (54 votes)
Training presentation: Excel 2007—Enter formulas Rating: (14 votes)
Training presentation: Excel 2007—Create your first workbook Rating: (17 votes)
Training presentation: Microsoft Office—How the 2007 system helps you to stay safer Rating: (7 votes)
Training presentation: Outlook 2007—Create and use your own Electronic Business Card Rating: (3 votes)
Training presentation: Excel 2007—Get started with PivotTable reports New! Version: PowerPoint 2000 or later

Then there is the online training, all of which can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/default.aspx

ttfn

David

Technorati tags: Office training, Office 2007, Training

Bulletin Number	Maximum Severity	Affected Products	Impact
MS07-023	Critical	Microsoft Excel (all currently supported versions)	Remote Code Execution
MS07-024	Critical	Microsoft Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 (Mac)	Remote Code Execution
MS07-025	Critical	Microsoft Office (all currently supported versions)	Remote Code Execution
MS07-026	Critical	Microsoft Exchange (all current versions)	Remote Code Execution
MS07-027	Critical	Internet Explorer - all current versions on all currently supported versions of Microsoft Windows	Remote Code Execution
MS07-028	Critical	CAPICOM, BizTalk Server	Remote Code Execution
MS07-029	Critical	Windows 2000 (server), Windows Server 2003	Remote Code Execution