Download and install

The download for me was actually pretty quick. I've heard complaints from others who got caught in the rush to the servers, but I was able to get a pretty fast download speed the very first evening the public beta was available. Just lucky I guess.

The first thing I noticed when I tried to install alongside 2003 was that Outlook was having none of that. You cannot run two versions of Outlook on the same machine the way you can with the other Office products. I guess that makes sense, I just wasn't really prepared for that, and was a bit worried some of my Outlook plugins wouldn't work, but I forged ahead. I figured I could always go back to 2003 if it was a big enough problem.

The install went along fine, and it required a reboot. I know not everyone has required the reboot, but my laptop did. It was nice enough to ask if I wanted to reboot now or later, so that's a plus.

When I opened Outlook at this point I was confronted with a number of different things, which made opening it seem ridiculously slow! First, it was transferring all my account settings, so I expected that to be a bit slow, but then it started with the messages. First, RealAccount was asking for the CDO Library to be installed. I remember from 2003 that wasn't a part of the default install so that's not unexpected. (The fact that I later discovered the CDO library is not an option at all in 2007, thus RealAccount is a no go was a bit of a surprise.)

Secondly, I was confronted with the "instant search in Outlook requires Windows Desktop Search to be installed". I hadn't counted on that. I hadn't really wanted to install it, but it kept nagging me everytime I opened Outlook or OneNote so eventually I gave in. I'm not proud. :(

Lastly, I got to the expected activation window. This is where my luck ran out, as the activation servers were slammed, so it took me about 24 hours to get activated. Not real thrilled with that, but it could have been worse.

Once I realized I wasn't going to get it activated that night, I cancelled out of it and proceeded to get into Outlook. The first problem, with AVG's email scanner, I've already talked about. Suffice it to say, that's not running any more. AV is running, it's just not scanning incoming mail. I'll have to trust my server's AV and my own instincts to keep me safe there. The other add-ins I'm using weren't a problem. SpamBayes picked right up where it was, although it did get an increased number of false positives, which leads me to suspect all of it's "training" did not transfer over, and Lookout apparently got uninstalled along with Outlook 2003, probably because it's all been integrated with desktop search so it's not needed any longer.

I'll have more on how the other products hit me on first launch on future posts.


posted 10:48 PM | 0 comments | Links to this post

And we're back

Since I kept this blog around for reference even though I was no longer actively writing about MS Office, it only seemed appropriate to bring it back now so that I could use it to keep my notes for the public beta of Office 2007 as well. So, here we go again. This is the place where I'll be noting all of my experiences with Office 2007, my likes, dislikes, and my thoughts on all things Office. If you'd care to follow along, there's an RSS feed, you can subscribe to get new posts by email, or you can just visit the site. I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts and hearing yours. I'll have a few introductory posts later this weekend.


posted 9:10 PM | 0 comments | Links to this post