Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Mark — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:54:27 GMT

I am so glad I found this site before I jumped into an Action Pack purchase. Although there is no denying the value of the AP with regards to the server software included, I was initially attracted to it because of the OS and Office software. However it seems that in regards to the OS software the AP is pretty much useless.

Since the AP includes only upgrade versions of Vista any new machines I purchase for my business are likely to be machines with OEM versions of Windows since this is a lot cheaper than buying a naked PC and installing a retail version or even volume license versions with the minimum order quantity of 5. And the cost difference between a machine with XP Pro installed or Vista Business is usually a big fat zero. So why would I buy a machine with XP Pro and use the action pack to upgrade to Vista Business when I can buy it with Vista Business in the first place for little or no additional cost? It becomes an even more pointless exercise in the near future when XP Pro will no longer be available on OEM machines.

The AP still offers value as soon as I want Office or any of the other applications on my machines or when I have a need to use the server software. But with regards to the OS stuff it is pointless.

In my view they might as well just remove Vista Business from the AP. For new customers the Vista upgrade in AP offers absolutely no value whatsoever, especially once XP is dead and gone. I mean what a seliing point that is, get upgrades to Business Vista for 10 machines, oh but remember you have to buy a machine with an OS on it and we don't allow distribution of XP on new machines anymore so the machines you buy will need to have Vista on it! And as a last random thought, does the AP Business Vista upgrade allow upgrading from Vista Home or Basic? Or will MS really be selling the AP with Vista Business upgrades when the only viable option for new PC purchases will be machines with Business Vista on them in the first place?

I understand that MS are trying to reduce piracy but that really is no excuse for having elements in the AP pack that quite frankly make them look ridiculous and also in the long run will reduce their new sales of the AP and alienate their existing AP customers.

Apologies for the rant, but it really is a ridiculous situation as far as Vista is concerned.

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

John — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 17:08:41 GMT

Thank you David for host this site. I am having the same problem as Patrick experienced between Office 2003 and Vista Home Premium except on an HP machine. I have followed the same steps as he did install/uninstall office 2003. With the same results. I have found a work around - if I copy the word exe file out of the office11 folder and put it in the office folder(one level up) then word will associate to doc files. I didn't have this problem until I upgraded from Office 2000. Everything was properly associated until the upgrade.

Thank you again,

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

David Overton — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 07:02:38 GMT

Patrick,

lets do this in order:

1) Office 2003 is fully supported on Vista - if you have a problem, contact the support desk - if it is a bug then the support call is 100% free. Also, have you contacted Gateway about it?

2) You are the 1st person I know to have these issues - they smell of an anti-virus engine issue

3) Macs make lovely Vista machines - why do you think you see MS employees with them. Also, we make software for Macs, so some MS people would need them to do their day jobs

4) I don't think MS lies about its software and solutions - we would be up in court too fast - no point is taking someone to court who has no money, but people are only too quick to take MS in to the dock

5) Competition and not 100% MS is perfectly normal, don't be silly by thinking otherwise

6) Did you look at support.microsoft.com or even the Office 2003 pages on this blog to resolve your problems?

Finally, don't come on my blog and rant at me - this is done as a love of mine, not a platform for others to rant. If you want help diagnosing the problem, feel free (as it says at the top of the page) and contact me directly (so I can reply directly to you) and we will see what is happening.

thank-you

David

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Patrick — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 04:46:04 GMT

After hours of attempts to install Office 2003 on my new Gateway with Vista Home Premium, I give up. After the first installation, I could for the life of me get Vista to associate .doc files with the Office 2003 version of Word. I could launch Word 03 just fine, and then get it to open the older word docs, but even when I saved a new file, Vista thought it belonged to wordpad.

I tried all of the obvious things to reassociate .doc files,, and several registry-level non-obvious ones. Nothing worked. PowerPoint and Excel 2003 seemed to work fine, it was just the Word thing. OK, try again.

So I gamely uninstalled Office 2003 and reinstalled it, but that made things worse. Now my circa-2000 .ppt files do not open at all in PowerPoint 2003. It tries to open them, fails, and then blandly informs me that they are not, in fact, .ppt files.

Well, I've had it with Office, and as soon as I can afford it, with Windows.

For now I'm going OpenOffice, which seems to work just fine under Vista. Thank God for open source projects whose proprietors are no good at lying.

And then once this box is fully amortized, I'm finally going Macintosh. I'm about the last serious software craftsman I know who has not made the switch.

You MS guys can blather on all you like about how healthy and normal everything is, but I am starting to see MS programmers carrying Macs to the software conferences, so I think your denial may soon be wearing thin.

[moderated]

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Greg — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 21:05:16 GMT

Quick question: does Office 97 Pro (SR-1) install and run on Vista? None of my net searches has yielded any conclusive answers and Microsoft's website doesn't divulge any info on this question either. Appreciate the feedback if anyone knows...

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

David Overton — Sun, 06 May 2007 20:56:12 GMT

Betsy, this is the space before / after Paragraph settings coming into play here - have a look at uksbsguy.com/.../how-to-remove-those-spaces-before-after-and-inbetween-paragraphs-in-word-2007-part-of-office-2007.aspx for a how to guide for this.

ttfn

David

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Betsy — Sun, 06 May 2007 20:32:56 GMT

2007 Vista Student and Office Edition does not allow me to create one line spacing in Address Headings but okay within the body of the letter, is this a glitch. I have never experienced this in my former Word Programs. In the dialog box it does specify single spacing. Any advice would be appreciated.

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

David Overton — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 09:01:13 GMT

Mark,

It was a very unusual process that led to Office and Vista betas being in the Action Pack.

I will ask, but I would expect that TechNet will still be the default place for betas that are not "publically" available.

thanks

David

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Mark — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:01:17 GMT

Hi David

Can we not have SBS Cougar beta and/or Longhorn Beta added to AP?

Mark

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Chris — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:33:52 GMT

Hi David,

I have both Office 2003 (just Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and Office 2007 (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) installed on an XP machine. If I only run Office 2003 apps everything is fine. When I run an Office 2007 app, I have to wait for "something" to be reconfigured. Then the Office 2007 apps run fine. If I then run an Office 2003 app, I have to wait while "something" is reinstalled. What's going on?

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Tone — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:50:58 GMT

Oops posted wrong http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.office.setup&mid=1d0b7419-58d8-48af-8c86-5237e2f20bcd&sloc=en-us

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Tone — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:20:06 GMT

Hi David,

I forgot to mention the same error occurs using the DVD, running procmon shows setup.exe cannot find 74 files its looking for in admin mode.

I have listed files here so I dont bog down the blog.

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx?query=tone&dg=microsoft.public.office.setup&cat=en_us_642d5640-c1ba-43c3-a224-b3ec1473346c&lang=en&cr=us&pt=&catlist=&dglist=&ptlist=&exp=&sloc=en-us&mid=9c4162cc-cfed-4f8c-be4a-007fb810a9ed

Will try and get media replaced with a different part no,

Cheers!

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

David Overton — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:53:45 GMT

Tone,

It is always worth double checking the network install point - what happens if you try the same command from the CD?

Mostly these sorts of issues are media and / or bad copy related. You can always use the tool at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/processmonitor.mspx to find out what files it thinks are missing and let me know.

thanks

David

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Tone — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 03:38:05 GMT

Hi David,

Office 2007 doesnt seem to be functioning the same as the Enterprise version as I am unable to run the Office Customization Tool and get the following error when running setup.exe /admin from my network installation point.

"Files necessary to run the Office Customization Tool were not found. Run Setup from the installation point of a qualifying product"

This error should only appear when running the Office Customization Tool from a retail version.

DVD Part no. X13-35827 EN Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007

It has been suggested it due to retail keys but no keys are entered at this stage..

Thanks,

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

David Overton — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:43:14 GMT

I would say there issues are not normal or Vista problems. One of the nice things about an OEM machine is that you can phone them for support. also, can you have more details and actual error messages?

thanks

David

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Marv — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 13:58:17 GMT

Hi David:

Just purchased a HP with Vista OS. The screensaver does not hold most of the time. Have to constantly go and initiate the settings and get lucky 3 out of 10 time approx..

Also when downloading for new updates on Wondows Live Toolbar- i receive error messages of files requiring updates and can not continue..

Also,WEbroot spy sweeper popped up lettin me know of a more current update . During dowmload, it failed and i never heard anymore.

Are these glitches in Vista or are there fixes available,

Thanks

Action Pack FAQ's

Partner Perspectives — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 11:32:24 GMT

Today I was chatted with the partner facing guys in our department, trying to find out what their most

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

David Overton — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 08:01:01 GMT

Chris,

Vista still can not be joined to multiple domains at the same time. Given that we have a layered security model - domain, computer and local, which one is king in a multi domain environment? Remember they effect more than what the user can do - they also impact what the computer can do.

For this reason, amongst others this is not possible. The best I can advise is to either have >1 login and use the password management for each user to have your domain credentials or simple have 1 user and use password management to simplify access.

ttfn

David

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

David Overton — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:58:01 GMT

Andrew,

The item I need to check is if the Ultimate version that you get by buying the upgrade of th action pack version can then be used to get the x64 version.

thanks

David

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Andrew Willett — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:27:58 GMT

Hi Bob,

With regard to the question 'How can I get the x64 version of Vista / Office?':

1) The x64 version of Windows Vista is shipped with Vista Ultimate Edition, and available on request for the cost of shipping and handling for all other versions (except Starter). The same key will activate either version.

2) There is no x64 version of Office at the present time.

Hope this helps!

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

Chris Swinney — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:03:40 GMT

One further comment - is it now possible in Vista to be able to join a machine to multiple domains, so that a laptop can be seen as part of a clients network (or even a home/work domain config) - or is this not a good idea?

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

David Overton — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:53:39 GMT

Bob,

the memory requirements for Vista are not different be they 32 or 64-bit. Info is at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919183/en-us - however if the user is a power user, then 1GB is not recommended. I run systems (at home and work) with 1GB, 2GB and 3GB. my 3GB system does not use anywhere near 3GB.

ttfn

David

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

BobG — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:43:59 GMT

A 1GB minimum memory is advised for Vista. However, it has been suggested to me that to run Vista Ultimate 64 bit version a 3GB minimum is necessary. We have an active enquiry for this and I am trying to spec a PC to meet the requirement. Can you comment please

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

BobG — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:37:51 GMT

The recommended minimum memory for a Vista PC is stated as 1GB. However, it has been suggested that to run Vista Ultimate the minimum memory should be raised to 3GB.

Is this a true statement??

re: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007 Action Pack Update - my FAQ

David Overton — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:50:28 GMT

Chris,

1st off - you are right about stating the upgrade to Ultimate costs money and this should be at the TOP of th FAQ - it is now :-).

Vista so far does not sound like the best. If you are seeing crashes, unless you have done something silly, it sounds like bugs (in drivers or Vista) to me. If you go to control panel and search for problem you will see the problem history item. Make sure they are submitted and see if there are any solutions. We are already seeing people put new drivers up (I have had Toshiba publish some for my laptop recently) which significantly improves things. The HDD thrashing I would guess is the index engine rebuilding - as it is a SQL database it does not like crashes and sometimes does a rebuild afterwards.

It might also be worth running the memory test tool (search for memory from the start menu) to double check the system. Vista does stress a system and can sometimes find previously unknown issues - oh joys!

One last thing, Vista now logs hangs, crashes and slow downs, so the issues you are seeing should be reported so we can see them. If something is happening a lot, drop me a mail (address at the top of the page) and find me the "bucket number" - I will see what we have on it.

thanks

David