Sunny Man’s Blog

October 2nd 2006

(0) Microsoft Office 2007

Life, Misc.

Microsoft have recently released a ‘Technical Refresh’ for all Office 2007 Beta 2 testers. As long as you have Beta 2 already installed, you can download the Technical Refresh for free (unlike the original Beta 2 which is now a charged download of £1.20). You can download it now, at the Microsoft website for free and I’ll give a brief overview of what the update does to the current Beta 2 programs. This isn’t a complete list of changes but it’s a rough guide of what you can expect.

Technical Refresh

This update or sorts is compatible with Windows Server 2003, Windows XP (SP2) and Microsoft Windows Vista RC1. The update improves the Office 2007 suite by making the programs faster and there are also some graphical enhancements. The update provides the programs with new splash screens and new program icons which look really nice and are a refreshing modern design. Inside the programs, there are subtle user interface changes as well with the main program menu being revamped. There also seem to be a change in some of the icons used inside the programs itself, especially in Excel 2007. All in all it’s more responsive, aesthetically more pleasing and feels like something you’d like to use. There’s no risk; download it today and update your Office 2007 installation. It’s a mean 500MB download but took me longer to install it that to download it so, just warning you this isn’t dial-up friendly (not like anyone is using dial-up anymore… I hope).

General Thoughts

I’m really pleased with Microsoft’s new Office Suite. Although there’s a great free alternative out there (OpenOffice), you can’t been good old Microsoft Office. You go onto any PC with Windows installed, you’re almost guaranteed to find an installation of Office on it. The new look and feel to Office 2007 is ver nice, very modern and very curvy. It wouldn’t be possible really to have made this version, as it is, without the adoption of even bigger screen sizes - the 17, 19 and 21 inches in screens we see so widely nowadays. It has even more flexibility than the previous versions of Office and it’s much easier to use with toolbars replaced by tabs and sections. It’s much more user friendly and will allow both new adopters and seasoned users to become familiar quickly and be happy to use it. It brings some new features that I welcome with much anticipation like SmartArt and Formulas. I just hope Microsoft take notice of OpenOffice’s gaining popularity and price it competitvely.