Office 2010 impressions

I have been using the beta for a while, but I recently found that our school has made the RTM available for install. I wiped out 2007 and installed 2010.. but I find the RTM strangely... buggy.

1.  in Word, insert a cover page. then try to undo. I get "Error - This object model command is not available while in the current event. in"

2. in Powerpoint, hover over a custom template that has a background image, then hover over a normal template that does not have a background image, like 'apothecary'. The preview in the second case uses the background image of the custom template O_o

3. in Powerpoint, typing characters in the SOHO theme is rather slow - characters appear after sometime.

On the other hand, I love a lot of things about the new office -

1. Powerpoint transitions are really cool

2. Love some of the new themes in powerpoint - Waveform, Sketchbook, SOHO

3. Love the fact that you can now change the paste mode by pressing the CTRL key after a paste

4. Like the new lightweight ribbon

Haven't tried out the new Outlook yet. Will try soon

Microsoft also figured out that a hidden folder buried three levels deep into %USERPROFILE% wasn't a good default place to store the PST that has every piece of information a user has in Outlook. It's now in a folder in Documents. I was happy about this.

Can't repro #1, does Word have any addins installed?

fknight said:

Microsoft also figured out that a hidden folder buried three levels deep into %USERPROFILE% wasn't a good default place to store the PST that has every piece of information a user has in Outlook. It's now in a folder in Documents. I was happy about this.

Nice. That's where I move mine anyways.

CreamFilling512 said:

Can't repro #1, does Word have any addins installed?

yes, i do actually, now that you remind me. I have the Mendeley plugin. It must be that.

fknight said:

Microsoft also figured out that a hidden folder buried three levels deep into %USERPROFILE% wasn't a good default place to store the PST that has every piece of information a user has in Outlook. It's now in a folder in Documents. I was happy about this.

I use Exchange, and my OST files are still under AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

Why would the PSTs be under Documents? It isn't a human-readable file.

W3bbo said:

fknight said:

*snip*

I use Exchange, and my OST files are still under AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

 

Why would the PSTs be under Documents? It isn't a human-readable file.

Because when you don't use Exchange, and want to do a backup of your data, having all your email calendar and contacts stashed away in some non user visible folder so you can't easily select it for backup dosen't sound like such a great idea anymore.

i had a brief go at the free online offerings. no hot-keys is a let-down, otherwise very usable for occasional edits. free online powerpoint lite is enough to get mildy excited about.

itsnotabug said:

i had a brief go at the free online offerings. no hot-keys is a let-down, otherwise very usable for occasional edits. free online powerpoint lite is enough to get mildy excited about.

Yeah I may end up using OneNote online a lot, syncing with SkyDrive and being able to make edits in the browser is sweet.

W3bbo said:

fknight said:

*snip*

I use Exchange, and my OST files are still under AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

 

Why would the PSTs be under Documents? It isn't a human-readable file.

"I'm reinstalling Windows and I need to backup my email so I still have it after the reinstall."

<proceed to walk a non-technically inclined user through the process of unhiding folders, possibly needing to cover the concept of user profile directories, and other additional things depending on his configuration>

XLS files aren't human readable either. Nor are JPEGs, PNGs, GIFs, MP3s, AVIs, or PDFs. Like PST files, they all need a program to open up the data file and present the information to the user.

And like XLS files, JPEGs, PNGs, GIFs, MP3s, AVIs, and PDFs, Outlook's PST files need to be in a place that's accessible to an end-user who has no interest in earning an MCSE certificate just so he can back it up when he needs to reinstall Windows or migrate to another PC.

OST files can stay where they are because they're not used directly by the end user and serve only as a cache. They have no need to be touched, located, or backed up by a non-technically inclined end user.

fknight said:

W3bbo said:

*snip*

"I'm reinstalling Windows and I need to backup my email so I still have it after the reinstall."

 

<proceed to walk a non-technically inclined user through the process of unhiding folders, possibly needing to cover the concept of user profile directories, and other additional things depending on his configuration>

 

XLS files aren't human readable either. Nor are JPEGs, PNGs, GIFs, MP3s, AVIs, or PDFs. Like PST files, they all need a program to open up the data file and present the information to the user.

 

And like XLS files, JPEGs, PNGs, GIFs, MP3s, AVIs, and PDFs, Outlook's PST files need to be in a place that's accessible to an end-user who has no interest in earning an MCSE certificate just so he can back it up when he needs to reinstall Windows or migrate to another PC.

 

OST files can stay where they are because they're not used directly by the end user and serve only as a cache. They have no need to be touched, located, or backed up by a non-technically inclined end user.

 

 

By "human readable" I mean "double-click to open". You can't double-click a PST file. But the rest of your points are fine.

DCMonkey said:

W3bbo said:

*snip*

Because when you don't use Exchange, and want to do a backup of your data, having all your email calendar and contacts stashed away in some non user visible folder so you can't easily select it for backup dosen't sound like such a great idea anymore.

 

 

Doesn't Windows Backup include those folders by default? I think most users aren't going to go in and manually choose folders to backup. They'll just leave it on "files in libraries and personal folders for all users".

CKurt said:

CreamFilling512 said:

*snip*

OOPS, you will not be able to do that...

 

You can only sync to sync folders on skydrive, and those folders don't alow Office Web Apps...

You can have OneNote save to SkyDrive, and since it saves automatically, it's pretty much the same as syncing.

CreamFilling512 said:

CKurt said:

*snip*

You can have OneNote save to SkyDrive, and since it saves automatically, it's pretty much the same as syncing.

Does it work offline?

giovanni said:

CreamFilling512 said:

*snip*

Does it work offline?

This is all terribly confusing. Syncing folders with skydrive, saving to skydrive, not being able to sync to web apps folders.. How are normal consumers ever going to make heads or tails of it?

W3bbo said:

fknight said:

*snip*

By "human readable" I mean "double-click to open". You can't double-click a PST file. But the rest of your points are fine.

I think there are generally 4 kinds of files for 99% of the users.

Music : music, radio, anything sound.

Pictures : pictures, anything static.

Videos : moving pictures.

Documents : everything else, pst is indeed "documents". it contains all kinds of documents. If not, it would be saying that a .doc is a picture just because it contains some pictures.

I got Documents\Email\<moo>.PST.