Office 2007 Reviews | The Coffeehouse

Manip

Post reviews of the new Office 2007 beta here.

Here's something interesting:

And moments later, I run a search, and...:

On a positive note I love the preview functionality:

If you accidentally click the numeric date in the month view within the calender it automatically goes to the day view which is surprisingly annoying and surprisingly easy to do....

Outlook also broke my connection to University without informing me... Because it didn't like the SSL cert. 8-)

You can't automate a web-save of your calander.. You need to do it by hand each time or use Microsoft's lame Office Live product.

Here's an interesting thing... What is wrong with you guys? Why does "remind me later" mean "remind me each time I load outlook?"

Your desktop search SUCKS ... It eats CPU like crazy!

OHH JOY! It seems Outlook requires me to accept the certificate EVERY TIME IT LOADS! ... I hope Verisign is giving you guys a lot of cash - Microsoft because your going to loose customers if you keep up this "a cetificate for every man, women and child -- from vertisign."

BenZilla

Aw, you read my mind Wink

We can just delete my topic, I'll bring my post over.

BenZilla

Now that this is in the wild, I managed to get Office before all the download servers seemed to die

First up, I'm really liking outlook for some reason in the title bar it shows "Inbox - <0w> - Microsoft Office"

But I LOVE the UI, it looks really nice and clean and intutive

What do you guys think?

When I get Vista beta I'm gonna wipe this machine and put this and VS2005 and run the holy trinity

Just delete my topic

Tom Servo
W-hat?

Did you let it the time to index your inbox?

jamie

i love the look of word and outlook

not sold on the outlook fonts yet - but ill try them for a day or two
(looks like lucida console command line font - prefered tahoma/verdan-verdana-dana Wink

Cybermagellan
Live for nothing, or die for everything

I'm really impressed with the way that the PowerPoint Transitions are laid out...from what I've been told I come up with some pretty impressive powerpoints...Hopefully this will just help more.

Larsenal
ready to give an answer

Even though I'd seen all the C9 videos on these features, there's something about using it yourself that opens your eyes to the possibilities.

The data sources in Excel are really easy to use. It makes me think this may be a neat way to consume system monitoring usage statistics for an app I'm building.

Tom Servo
W-hat?

One thing already ruined my day. Outlook needs external WDS, yet there is no WDS for Windows x64, thus I don't have instant search. Really great thinking. [C]

jamie

i could be wrong - but it seems dragging to junkmail folder actually = blocking sender now! (no clicking each one) (hooray! thanks ms)

also the filter acceppted all the .stupid@emailaddress.wtf that it wouldnt before [y]

Edit...bzzt sorry. nope still not fixed - and you cannot select muliple spams and say "add to blocked" - still have to go one by one [n]

Zeo
Channel 9 :)

Feature I love most about Office 2007 for word is pressing CRL+F1. It's really cool I can finally just see what I'm writing!

keeron
Obsessive Geek

Zeo wrote:

Feature I love most about Office 2007 for word is pressing CRL+F1. It's really cool I can finally just see what I'm writing!

Hmm didn't know about that shortcut (until I tried)... (Same effect if you double click the ribbon tabs - in any Office 07 app)

jamie

ah in Word... cool

*does everyone else's Word default empty doc open as a little thumbnail sized page - so you have to zoom it in everytime?

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

*mutter* stupid presentation requirement for next weekend. can't install beta software. did that last time and watched presentation fall apart.

Francis_Cole

Am I the only one getting the following error when trying to install via SmartSource?

"Error - SmartSource for Microsoft Office Downloads"

and the actual error message:

" ! Error!"

Cheers
Fran

edit: Fixed it, looked at the logs and worked out I had to uninstall the verdana font and install it again. Smiley

littleguru
<3 Seattle

Manip wrote:
Here's an interesting thing... What is wrong with you guys? Why does "remind me later" mean "remind me each time I load outlook?"

Your desktop search SUCKS ... It eats CPU like crazy!

I hate this dialog too. It was not in the previous version of Outlook 2007. Is there a switch to disable it? I don't like the Desktop Search too. I don't need it, why is Outlook telling me to install it on each start. Did nobody think that there could be people not liking/requiring those search features?

BenZilla

Tools - Advanced options, allows you to turn off the notification.

Maurits
AKA Matthew van Eerde

I'm getting "Server Too Busy" at the download.

Memo to Microsoft: BitTorrent.

Manip

BenZilla wrote:
Tools - Advanced options, allows you to turn off the notification.

There's no such option

Cider
Daze-d & Confused

Look! LOOK!

You can actually put mail you've sent from your IMAP accounts in your IMAP's Sent folders!!! Its a blimming breakthrough! Only took 10 years or so...

In all seriousness, one of the things I'm really taken by is just the look-and-feel. Now, I know W3bbo is probably going to moan and moan that the interface isn't XP-like or some such rubbish, but the whole look-and-feel and way its laid out is startlingly refreshing. Loving the interface. Whilst the functionality is a whole lot better, from the short time I've tried it, its a shame the main Outlook interface is pretty much the same as Outlook 2003.

Maurits
AKA Matthew van Eerde

Cider wrote:
You can actually put mail you've sent from your IMAP accounts in your IMAP's Sent folders!!!

That's worth the price of a new computer right there Smiley

BenZilla

Whoops

Tools - Options - Other - Advanced Options

SimonJ

Re: Outlook Instant Search

Did you notice the bar saying "click here to enable Instant Search" in your first and second screenshots?

You have to click there which leads you to download and install the Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta which is what Outlook and OneNote use for searching. WDS 3 beta is pretty stable and does not interrupt or slow the user if they are working.

Once that is installed AND you wait for the index to be built - MS recommending leaving your PC (and Outlook) on overnight so it has some idle time to use - you should be able to search in Outlook.

SimonJ

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

Cider wrote:
You can actually put mail you've sent from your IMAP accounts in your IMAP's Sent folders!!! Its a blimming breakthrough! Only took 10 years or so...

Too bad IMAP doesn't actually work at all for me.

Rowan
Look, no errors.

Outlook 2007 First Impressions

Downloaded and installed in about 14 minutes, went pretty smoothly.

The first thing I noticed when navigating the folders is that it's still rather confusing. For example, down the left pane there are Favourite Folders, Mail Folders, Personal Folders, even Search Folders (wtf?).

Here's a thought, one list of all the folders categorised correctly:

- Personal

Inbox
Drafts
Sent Items
Junk E-mail (Strangely this is the only time the word "E-mail" is used)
Deleted Items

(Now, does anyone even care about the Outbox?)

- RSS Feeds

All
Etc...

Why is there even a list of folders for searching? Shouldn't this tie into the SEARCH or SORT features?

I still don't understand Send/Receive, what if I just want to download all my mail without sending unsent mail? I don't know about others, but I don't normally write up 10 emails and send them all at once either. I'm always hesitant to click on that button.

Also, what's the fascination with "Instant Search", is it a necessary feature? Does it find anything the built-in search can't find? Is there any reason why I'm reminded constantly to download it, besides being a marketing ploy to overthrow Google?

It seemed remarkably simple to set up my Gmail account, besides the weird terminology they use in some cases (Eg, would you like to "Upgrade" from a previous Outlook version? Do you mean "Import my mail"?). However even though it appeared to set up my account correctly it simply won't actually send anything, it says I have two sent emails in my sent folder, but I haven't actually received those test emails.

It does receive emails if I send them from Thunderbird though, so I know Gmail is working.

On another note, I'm rather impressed with the overall layout of the mail section, it's pleasing to the eye, clean and uncluttered (surprisingly).

If only it worked...

Overall I can see myself switching from Thunderbird to O12 for a while, which is a good thing for Outlook. I will need to play with it more though.

jamie

rowan - ms is busy "thrilling customers" your tiny concerns will have to wait

Perplexed

(welcome to the "things we wish were fixed in outlook" club... like ...um... spam spam spam ...spam de spam wonderful spam - to go in BLOCKED when dragged there (not selected one by one)