PC Tips Box » Office

Office 2010 Beta Available for Download

Jason — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:55:35 +0000

The first fully-fledged Beta Build of Office 2010 is now available for download to subscribers of Microsoft’s developer and IT professional portals. The Redmond company managed to live up to its promise to offer Office 2010 Beta by the end of November 2009, with public availability of the bits expected any day now, possibly as soon as tomorrow, November 18th. At the time of this article the latest development milestone of the next iteration of the Office System was only up for grabs via MSDN and TechNet, with the website set up to offer public downloads continuing to note that the bits would be served “soon.”

Microsoft has so far dodged all questions related to the official deadline for the availability of Office 2010 public downloads. However, the software giant did indicate that the latest leaked Build of the productivity suite differed from the bits that the general public would be able to get their hands on. In mid-November, Office 2010 Beta Build 14.0.4514.1009 was leaked to the web, although the illegal release didn’t really start growing in popularity until the past week when it became clear that the official version was just around the corner.

Both MSDN and TechNet subscribers can download Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta in 32-bit (x86) and (x64) flavors. Only the English variant of Office 2010 has been made available for download through MSND and TechNet. According to Microsoft, Office 2010 Beta requires less hardware resources than its predecessor. Users will need a 500MHz processor or higher, with 256MB of RAM or higher, and a 3GB hard drive.

Microsoft delivered the first testing milestone of Office 2010 in July 2009. At that time, the Technical Preview was an invitation only testing program opened to a limited number of early adopters. With the Beta development milestone, Microsoft is now ready to share the work it has done on the successor of Office 2007 with the rest of the world as downloads will be public. In this regard, the Redmond company has introduced improvements in the Beta Build compared to the Technical Preview release, including tweaks to the graphical user interface. Keep your eyes on this space for additional coverage of Office 2010’s evolution in the coming days.

Download MSDN | TechNet

Tags: Beta Available, Downloads, Microsoft, msdn, Office, Office 2007, Office 2010, Software, technet, tweak, tweaks

Office 2010 Build 14.0.4417.1000

Jason — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:10:59 +0000

A new development milestone of the next iteration of the Office System has been leaked and made available for download in the wild. Microsoft is currently making its way to the first Beta of office 2011, a release slated to be available to all users as a public testing build.

However, the Redmond-based company managed to keep a tight lid on all details associated with the development process of Office 2010 since the delivery of the Technical Preview build in July 2010. Still, the silence must not be mistaken for inactivity, as the leaked Office 2010 Build 4417 comes to prove.

Both the 32-bit and the 64-bit flavors of Office 2010 Build 4417 have been leaked and are now up for grabs from various third-party sources. And while torrent trackers and warez websites are serving the bits illegally, Microsoft continues to be mute on the development of Office 2010.

Still, the productivity suite is undoubtedly advancing. According to Wzor, Office 2010 Build 14.0.4417.1000 is labeled as a Beta release, and no longer just a Technical Preview.

Technical Preview testers of Office 2010 have been able to grab the bits for the first development milestone of Office 2010 since July 13, 2009. The Office 2010 Technical Preview is a limited testing program, as opposite to the beta.

The Redmond-based company indicated that the first Beta of Office 2010 would be a public release. Even before the Technical Preview had been made available, the software giant pointed to the first half of 2010 for the release of Office 2010.

There are some changes in Office 2010 Build 14.0.4417.1000 in comparison to 14.0.4302.1000.

Tags: 32-bit, 64-bit, download, Microsoft, Milestone, Office, Office 2010, torrent, torrent trackers

How do I enable or disable DEP for Office applications?

Jason — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:45:40 +0000

This tips helps you enable or disable Data Execution Prevention (DEP) for Office applications.

To enable or disable DEP automatically, click the Fix it button or link. Click Run in the File Download dialog box, and then follow the steps in the Fix it wizard.

Note this wizard may be in English only; however, the automatic fix also works for other language versions of Windows.

Note if you are not on the computer that has the problem, save the Fix it solution to a flash drive or a CD and then run it on the computer that has the problem.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756 How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

To enable DEP for Office applications, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then press Enter.

2. Type the following command at the command prompt and then press Enter:

sdbinst.exe –q “ \Office – Enable DEP.sdb”

To disable DEP for Office applications, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then press Enter.

2. Type the following command at the command prompt and then press Enter:

sdbinst.exe –q -u “ \Office – Enable DEP.sdb”

Tags: application, command, Computer, DEP, fix, Format, how to, Microsoft, microsoft knowledge base, Office, office applications, Support

New Microsoft Update Email Trojan

Jason — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:40:07 +0000

Microsoft never sends out updates by email so you should instantly bin this latest threat, which has been doing the rounds over the last 24 hours, I’ve already had about 50 of them sent to me. It’s really easy to spot, the Subject line says ‘Critical Update for Microsoft Outlook and if you open it, it says: Update for Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express (KB910721). Obviously it’s nothing of the sort though it looks very plausible and has none of the usual clumsy spelling and grammatical errors. If you click on the link you will be taken to a spoof website and instantly download a nasty Trojan, though there are some reports suggesting that the payload may have changed in the past 12 hours. Either way don’t open it and do not on any account click on the link, and at the risk of repeating myself, remember that, Microsoft never sends out updates for Windows by email.

Tags: email, Microsoft, microsoft outlook, Microsoft Update, Outlook, Outlook Express, risk, spoof, trojan, Web, Windows

Google Apps Sync Kills Outlook Search

Jason — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:19:58 +0000

Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, introduced at the start of the past week, manages to handicap the Redmond company’s email client, delivered as a part of the Office System. Essentially, the installation of Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook manages to kill the email client’s ability to search its own data. The tool from the Mountain View-based search giant is designed to bridge Outlook 2003 SP3 and 2007 SP2 (or SP1) with Google Apps. However, it appears that Google failed to perform sufficient testing of the utility, as Microsoft came across a bug that no longer allowed users of Outlook to search through their data.

“The installation of the Google Apps Sync plugin disables Outlook’s ability to search any and all of your Outlook data,” stated Dev Balasubramanian, Outlook product manager. “When a Google Apps user installs the sync plugin for Outlook, the plugin modifies a registry key which disables Windows Desktop Search from indexing and providing search functionality for all Outlook data, not just the Outlook data being synchronized from GMail. Because Outlook search relies upon the indexing performed by Windows Desktop Search, Outlook search functions are broken as a result.”

Balasubramanian warned that the issue was serious, and that users of Outlook who had also deployed the Google Apps Sync might not get Outlook search functionality back even if they removed the plugin. Simply removing Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook is not sufficient to enable the connection between Windows Desktop Search and Outlook. Until a solution will be made available by Google, Microsoft advises that affected users tweak the registry key modified by Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook.

1) Press the Windows Key + R on your keyboard, and type “REGEDIT”. This will open the Windows Registry Editor.

2) Browse to the following: “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search”

3) You will manually have to reset the value of “PreventIndexingOutlook” to “0” (without the quotes).

4) To do this, right click on the “PreventIndexingOutlook” key, select “Modify…”, then change the value data to “0”,” Balasubramanian stated.

Tags: email, gmail, google, google apps, Google Apps Sync, microsoft outlook, Office, Outlook, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, synchronize, tweak

Open XML Compatibility Pack

Jason — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:35:40 +0000

Downloads of the Open XML Compatibility Pack have passed the 100 million mark, Microsoft revealed. The Redmond-based company is offering the Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats for users of Office releases prior to Office 2007 in order to enable them to not only open, but also edit, and even save documents, workbooks, and presentations in Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007 file formats, namely the Open XML ISO standards. The software giant indicated that the number of Open XML Compatibility Pack downloads was illustrative of the increase in adoption of the OOXML standards introduced with the advent of the Office 2007 System.

“The compatibility pack is a manual download. It is not pushed through any update channels. In order for an end user to obtain it, they must visit the Microsoft download center, select one of the 35 available languages, and download the 26MB installer. To say it differently, more than 100 million people have had cause to seek out and download the compatibility pack for Open XML; likely due to their encountering a document stored in one of the formats,” explained Gray Knowlton, Microsoft Office Group Product Manager.

However, Knowlton mentioned that the number of downloads could in fact be larger. In this regard, he indicated that when compiling the download statistics, Microsoft did not count the copies of Open XML Compatibility Pack that were distributed through Windows Server Update Services or other update and software product management services. In this regard, Microsoft would only count one download to the WSUS server, while the pack would be in fact pushed to an unknown number of computers in IT environments. At the same time, the Redmond-based company did not keep track of the Open XML Compatibility Packs distributed by OEMs.

“Also worth noting is the conservative nature of this measurement. The statistic measures known, completed downloads, but we’re also aware that in many cases, the download completes successfully even if we don’t receive the feedback that it has. It is very likely the case that the number of actual end user downloads greatly exceeds 100 million. We’re also not counting the # of downloads of the free viewers for Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 either,” Knowlton added.

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats is available for download here.

Tags: compatibility, Computer, download, excel, Format, Microsoft, microsoft office, Office, Office 2007, Open XML, Open XML Compatibility Pack, Software, word, word 2007

Stick with standard Office file formats

Jason — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:50:52 +0000

You can minimize file-compatibility issues by standardizing on the most common file formats. By default, OpenOffice.org saves files in Open Document Format (ODF). Microsoft’s by-the-book support for ODF, unfortunately, breaks some spreadsheet files, according to a recent ZDNet blog post.

OpenOffice reads and writes Office 2007’s default .docx and .xlsx XML file formats. But the older .doc and .xls formats are still the ones most often used. I suggest that you make the classic Office formats your defaults in OpenOffice. To set .doc as the document default, for example, open any OpenOffice program and do the following:

Step 1. Choose Tools, Options;

Step 2. Select General under Load/Save;

Step 3. Click Text Document under Document type in the Default file format and ODF settings section;

Step 4. Choose Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP in the Always save as drop-down menu and click OK.

To make .xls the default worksheet format, open the same dialog box and follow the same steps, with the following differences:

Step 1. Choose Spreadsheet under Document type in the Default file format and ODF settings section;

Step 2. Choose Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP in the Always save as drop-down list and click OK.

Tags: compatibility issues, document format, docx, excel, File, file format, Format, Microsoft, microsoft word, Office, Office 2007, openoffice, spreadsheet, word, worksheet, xml, xml file

Office 2007 Resource Kit

Jason — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:43:34 +0000

Microsoft is offering as a free download the Resource Kit content already made available on TechNet for the Office 2007 System. Packaged in Compiled Help format, the 2007 Office Resource Kit Technical Library weighs in at just 3.7 MB, and end-users will need an operating system capable of dealing with compiled help files, namely Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. According to Microsoft, the downloadable Office 2007 Resource Kit CHM offers nothing more than the 2007 Office Resource Kit technical library, which can be accessed on the company’s portal for IT professionals.

Essentially, the 2007 Office Resource Kit is designed as a resource centralizing a range of information, guides, walkthroughs, troubleshooting techniques etc. related to Office 2007. In this sense, the kit is set up to streamline the deployment of the Redmond company’s productivity suite in the context of corporate IT infrastructures.

“The primary administrative tools for deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office system are included with the product and are no longer available as a download as in previous versions [of] Office,” Microsoft revealed on the page for the kit, emphasizing that the resource brings to the table “a list of all new and updated content added recently to the 2007 Office Resource Kit TechNet library; [but also] a list of all downloadable content including white papers and downloadable books a compilation of sections in this library; [and even] white papers to help you evaluate the 2007 Microsoft Office system.”

The kit will help IT pros get started with Office 2007, deal with the aspects related to the planning and architecture for the product, but also with the actual deployment process. Via the Office 2007 Resource Kit, users can access guidelines for Office 2007 operations, security and protection, and even troubleshooting.

The 2007 Office Resource Kit Technical Library in Compiled Help format is available for download here.

Tags: access, deployment, download, Library, Microsoft, microsoft office, Office, Office 2007, office microsoft, office resource kit, operations security, Security, streamline, Technical, technical library, Troubleshoot, Windows Server 2008

14 Tips to Speed Up Microsoft Outlook 2007

Jason — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:33:56 +0000

While Outlook 2007 offers many new features that do indeed offer real benefits it can come at a price – performance.

On my Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM Outlook 2007 originally took a good 20 seconds to fire up from a fully booted PC and appeared to be constantly sluggish. So what can be done about it?

Tip 1: Delete attachments

A little-known feature in Outlook is the ability to keep an email but delete one or several attachment. Firstly, sort your inbox by file size (descending) and open a message (by double clicking so it opens in a new window) where you no longer wish to keep the attachment. Right click over the attachment and select Remove. Now save the email, repeat with all relevant emails in this mailbox and then repeat in any other mailboxes (including your sent items).

Tip 2: Split emails into Archives

Maybe you disabled the auto archive facility when you first saw it because you didn’t understand it? Archiving old emails into a separate file still allows you to access less frequently used material when required but keeps your system running faster as it does not have to trawl through all of this rendundant content regularly. Click File | New | Outlook Data File. Enter a name for the file – a new folder will now appear in the folder list on the left. You can add sub-folders to this by right clicking, which is useful if you want to create a similar hierarchy to your current inbox. Once done simply select multiple files in your main inbox and drag/drop them to the same inbox in your new archive folder. Repeat for all other folders (e.g. Sent Items and any others that you may have created). Close the new data file by right clicking over the title and selecting Close [Folder Name]. Now when Outlook loads it only loads you nice lightweight folder! Outlook 2007 is known to be far less tolerant of large PST data files than Outlook 2003. Aim to keep your main PST file under 500MB – the smaller the better.

Tip 3: Disable unessential Add-ins in Outlook 2007

Click on Tools, Trust Center and Add-Ins. Now select one of the various options from the dropdown menu at the bottom and uncheck any add-ins that you don’t use (which for me was an Adobe Acrobat one and Gotomeeting.com). Restart Outlook and see if this makes a difference.

Tip 4: No need for fax? Ditch it!

If you do not send or receive faxes on your PC then uninstall the facility as this has been known to cause issues with Outlook 2007.From Control Panel select Add/Remove Programs, select Add/remove windows components and uncheck Fax Service.

Tip 5: Enable Outlook 2007 logging to see if anything is going wrong

Outlook has an error logging capability, which could be useful if something is going wrong. Click Tools, Options, Other, Advanced Options and then tick Enable Logging. Logs will be stored in C:\Documents and Settings\[Username]\Local Settings\Temp\Outlook Logging\. Look for any errors, especially in OPMLog.log – perhaps relating to the checking of email on one or more of your POP3 accounts.

Tip 6: Compact your PST data files often

Use Outlook’s compact facility to compress your folders, especially your main PST file. Click on top folder name (e.g. Personal Folders), right-click and select Properties. Now select Advanced and then click on Compact Now.

Tip 7: Optimise your Exchange settings

If you are connecting to an Exchange server then the synchronisation (cacheing) process will add a further overhead to your system. You can switch off cacheing so that your PC always looks to the server for its mail, however be warned – this can cause a number of issues, such as massively increased network traffic, problems with junk mail filtering and the inability to read mail when you are not connected to the server. Check the Microsoft knowledge base for Exchange optimisation techniques here, as this is a constantly evolving issue and there may be more solutions by the time you read this.

Tip 8: Stop Outlook 2007 storing RSS information from IE7

If you are using IE7 and RSS feeds Outlook will also store all feed threads by default. Click Tools, Options, other, Advanced Options and then uncheck Sync RSS feeds to common feed list, followed by Any RSS feed that is updated appears as a new item. Close these screens and then click Tools, Accounts, RSS Feeds and delete the feeds. Now you have to delete the RSS threads from the RSS threads folder in your mail folders.

Tip 9: Run the Outlook 2007 Diagnostics check

Outlook has its own self-repair mechanism. Click on Help and Office Diagnostics, and then let Outlook run its diagnostic tests, which can take 15 minutes or so.

Tip 10: Update your Rules and Alerts

Under Tools, Rules & Alerts, Options select Upgrade Rules (only if you don’t use these PST files with an older version of Outlook). This updates the rules to Outlook 2007.

Tip 11: Scan and repair your PST file

Outlook ships with a scanning utility called SCANPST.EXE, located in drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12. Run this, locate your PST file and let it scan and repair any errors for you. Full details can be found here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA100758311033.aspx?pid=CH100788841033

Tip 12: Run Outlook 2007 in safe mode

You can start Outlook in safe mode, which stops Add-ins and certain other files from loading. This often loads Outlook with a startling speed boost! If you experience a big difference then try the following:

Quit out of Outlook 2007 and locate each of these files in turn and rename as indicated.

1. extend.dat – you will find this file in the location :\Documents and Settings\user-directory\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\extend.dat

//change it to extend.old

2. views.dat – may not find it most of the time

3. frmcache.dat – :\Documents and Settings\user-directory\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\FORMS\FRMCACHE.DAT

//change it to FRMCACHE.old

4. outcmd.dat – :\Documents and Settings\user-directory\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outcmd.dat

//change it to OUTCMD.old

Tip 13: Download the latest patches from Microsoft

At the time of writing there is one major patch which suggests that it will resolve performance issues. You can download it here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932086

Note that there are known issues with Outlook taking a long time when checking POP3 accounts. According to several blogs it relates to the AUTH command and only affects certain mailservers. It is wise to check that your settings are correct – options such as setting authentication as on may not actually be necessary and could be the cause of many of your problems, so check your ISP’s website for EXACT settings.

Tip 14: Other microsoft office 2007 tips here

Tags: application data, boost, control panel, Diagnostic, diagnostics, email, folders, inbox, logs, mailboxes, Microsoft, microsoft knowledge base, microsoft office, microsoft office 2007, microsoft outlook, Office 2007, outlook data, Performance, price performance, safe mode, service, windows components, xperience

Maximize Security in Outlook Express

Jason — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 09:42:21 +0000

Although Outlook Express was known to be rather vulnerable to online attacks, viruses and spyware, recent updates have improved Outlook Express security a lot. Considering that many use Outlook Express for e-mail and news reading, it is reassuring that Microsoft has addressed most known security holes.

As with most software though, security can be harmed when users get sloppy in how they use the software and how they configure the software. This is especially true with online applications. If you allow all kinds of content in e-mail or click every attachment you receive, no protection will be good enough.

So use good judgment when using Outlook Express to minimize your exposure to online threats. For MAXIMUM Outlook Express security consider the following tips too.

Windows and Outlook Express Updates

Regularly update your Windows XP software. Outlook Express is an integrated part of Windows XP, so any patches or updates to Outlook Express are released through Windows XP updates. If you have Windows updates set to automatic, Outlook Express will be updated as well. If you set Windows updates to ‘disabled’, then you need to manually update Windows XP.

Minimize HTML in Outlook Express Email

Read messages in plain text. Although HTML allows for better looking e-mails, it also increases security risks in Outlook Express. Unless you only receive e-mails from known and trusted sources, using plain text is the safest option. In the Tools menu, select Options. In the Options dialog box, select the Read tab, and then select the Read all messages in plain text checkbox. Click Apply to activate the setting.

If a message really needs to be viewed in HTML, you can select the message and then choose Message in HTML from the View menu.

In the same dialog box, consider clearing the checkbox named Automatically download message when viewing in the Preview Pane. When you scroll through your message list with the Preview Pane active, the messages are loaded immediately. Any harmful content in the message is also loaded. So it is better to disable this feature, or to disable the Preview Pane completely, and only open messages that you know are from trusted sources.

Restrict Image Downloading in Outlook Express

HTML content can contain harmful content. In most cases, HTML will be used to show a nice looking message, using layout options and images. But even image files have been misused in the past, where an image file is not really an image file. Unfortunately, even file formats can be misused. And what about an ActiveX control embedded in the HTML? How can you know if it is a harmful or safe piece of code?

In the Options dialog box of Outlook Express, select the Security tab. Now select the checkbox named Block images and other external content in HTML e-mail. Click OK to close the dialog box.

Apart from security improvement, this setting will also make your e-mail reading and downloading a bit faster since the images are not loaded.

Block Unsafe Attachments in Outlook Express

Attachments to e-mails are a convenient way to send files or documents to other people. But when someone sends you an executable (EXE) file, how do you know it does not contain a virus? The best protection from possibly unsafe e-mail attachments is to allow Outlook Express to block them.

In the Options dialog box, select the Security tab. Next, select the checkbox named Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus. Click Apply to activate the setting. Outlook Express will now allow you to open the e-mail, but the attachment is not accessible anymore.

Use Internet Security Zones in Outlook Express

Both Outlook Express and Internet Explorer are using the same Internet settings in Windows XP. As a result, the security zones concept is also available in Outlook Express. Using the Restricted sites zone rather than the Internet zone will prevent unsafe features of a website to be loaded or executed. You can use the Internet Options dialog box in the Internet Explorer to change the settings. In the Security tab, select the Restricted sites icon.

The Sites button allows you to add websites to this zone and the Custom level button gives you more control over what is allowed and what is not (most is not by default).

Block Spam in Outlook Express

Although Outlook Express does not have a Junk E-Mail filter like Outlook has, it is still possible to block spam as much as possible. This kind of e-mail is most likely to have harmful content, so filtering it is the first step in dealing with spam protection in Outlook Express.

Most ISP’s have spam filtering in their systems these days, but there is only so much that can be safely filtered without blocking e-mail that should normally be received. So if you still receive a lot of spam, you can use the message rules in outlook express to filter spam.

Following these steps can help you access your e-mail in a safe and secure way. Keep in mind that software can only do so much. Always use common sense, and do not open every e-mail blindly to prevent infecting your PC!

Tags: attachments, checkbox, email, Express, faster, Internet, Microsoft, Outlook, Outlook Express, outlook express security, patches, Protection, security risk, Settings, virus, Windows, windows update, windows xp updates

PC Tips Box » Office

Office 2010 Beta Available for Download

Related posts

Office 2010 Build 14.0.4417.1000

Related posts

How do I enable or disable DEP for Office applications?

Related posts

New Microsoft Update Email Trojan

Related posts

Google Apps Sync Kills Outlook Search

Related posts

Open XML Compatibility Pack

Related posts

Stick with standard Office file formats

Related posts

Office 2007 Resource Kit

Related posts

14 Tips to Speed Up Microsoft Outlook 2007

Related posts

Maximize Security in Outlook Express

Related posts