Because of the issues Microsoft seems to be having with the update servers, it was Thursday before I got my Patch Tuesday patches for my laptop. Included in the various patches were some patches for Office 2003, which I have installed (except for Outlook) alongside my beta 2007 install. Lo and behold, after installing the patches and restarting, I opened a spreadsheet that I needed to enter some information in and it opened in Excel 2003. Apparently the patches reset my defaults. I had to go open a 2007 application and wait about 10 minutes for a configuration wizard to run before things got back to normal.

So, don't be surprised after getting patched if you need to run this configuration when first opening any 2007 applications.

Yes, the end of the beta. Office 2007 is due to be released to manufacturing soon.

More importantly, for those of you might be interested in getting a beta look at it before it's released to the public, you only have until Oct. 25th before the preview site is gone for good, along with the downloads. According to that article the beta's will expire March 15, 2007. However, I should note that the licensing agreement on my install still says it will expire Feb. 1. Guess I'll find out the truth then, huh?

I'll still be writing more about what I'm finding in 2007 over the next few months, provided I find more free time!