Leaked: newer Office 2010 Technical Preview build

[Dark Nova Gamer]

Are public betas new for MS or something?

I never said they were 'new'. I said its a good thing for the to continue them.

 

[Patrick C]

Technical Preview Office 2010

It is very interesting to hear all the talk about things in this forum. I was just sent an invitation for the Technical preview of Office 2010. I am running 64 bit Windows 7 RC on a HP dv5-1125nr 4G of ram and 250 G Hd. Prior to downloading the Technical Preview I read the newsgroups that are associated with it. I was thinking of installing 64 bit Office 2010 but found out that it is not compatible with some of 32 bit add-ons for other programs in the Suite. I also had Office 2007 Professional installed when I converted. I installed Business Contact Manager and Visio at the same time. Everything installed perfectly and the programs are very interesting. There is a lot to know here but I thought if people were considering the upgrade, a report of a successful installation might be encouraging. God's Speed I think I like what I see so far! Patrick C

 

[john3347]

The 2010 Technical Preview has a few new features that were not in 2007. Word graphics capabilities have been enhanced significantly. The HUGE problem that I have with 2007 AND 2010 is the #$%^&* ribbon. I bought a copy of 2007 and took a couple of online classes to learn how it works and fretted with it for several months before scrapping it and reinstalling 2003. The ribbon can be hidden, giving back some desktop space, but it is just so inefficient requiring 3 to 5 mouse clicks to do what can be done in 2003 with 1 or 2 mouse clicks. It is also much less intuitive than past editions. 2010 has done little to fix this.

The use of the ribbon has even been expanded to Publisher and Vizio. YUCK!

 

[tw33k]

i'm still waiting to see if I've been accepted my m$ to preview 2010 (I doubt it after having waited the last week or so since I applied) I'm keen to try it. I rely heavily on Outlook and One Note both at work and at home. Apart from the fact that Outlook finally displays all day events in the to-do bar, any other significant changes you have noticed?

 

[Barman58]

i'm still waiting to see if I've been accepted my m$ to preview 2010 (I doubt it after having waited the last week or so since I applied) I'm keen to try it. I rely heavily on Outlook and One Note both at work and at home. Apart from the fact that Outlook finally displays all day events in the to-do bar, any other significant changes you have noticed?

Hi

My invitation took about 4 weeks so who knows ,

as for the changes in the two applications you mention the biggest is of course the integration of the ribbon which will be either a good or a bad thing dependent on your feelings on the matter.

have not had time to really play with the apps yet, (I don't run them in a production environment ), so have to find a quite time to grab some sample data and load it .

One thing I have noticed is that Outlook finally places it's .PST into your personal documents folder which is so much better for continuity and means I don't have to jump through hoops to work with my data structure.

Will try to post more impressions as I find them

 

[tw33k]

Hi

My invitation took about 4 weeks so who knows ,

as for the changes in the two applications you mention the biggest is of course the integration of the ribbon which will be either a good or a bad thing dependent on your feelings on the matter.

have not had time to really play with the apps yet, (I don't run them in a production environment ), so have to find a quite time to grab some sample data and load it .

One thing I have noticed is that Outlook finally places it's .PST into your personal documents folder which is so much better for continuity and means I don't have to jump through hoops to work with my data structure.

Will try to post more impressions as I find them

great...thanx for the info

 

[rush2112]

I never said they were 'new'. I said its a good thing for the to continue them.

Do you (or anyone else) know if the TP has a drop dead date?

 

[Barman58]

Direct from the EULA

5. TIME-SENSITIVE SOFTWARE. The software will stop running on 31/10/2010. You will not receive any other notice. You may not be able to access data used with the software when it stops running.

 

[petrossa]

a while ago i forwarded to 2015 and it opened docs still in word.

 

[jimbo45]

The 2010 Technical Preview has a few new features that were not in 2007. Word graphics capabilities have been enhanced significantly. The HUGE problem that I have with 2007 AND 2010 is the #$%^&* ribbon. I bought a copy of 2007 and took a couple of online classes to learn how it works and fretted with it for several months before scrapping it and reinstalling 2003. The ribbon can be hidden, giving back some desktop space, but it is just so inefficient requiring 3 to 5 mouse clicks to do what can be done in 2003 with 1 or 2 mouse clicks. It is also much less intuitive than past editions. 2010 has done little to fix this.

The use of the ribbon has even been expanded to Publisher and Vizio. YUCK!

HI all

Why this ribbon causes so much problems I can't understand.

A little bit of "RTFM" and you'll see on Office 2007 (and 2010) pressing CTRL+F1 gets rid of it on all the office apps.

To re-instate it just press CTRL+F1 again.

Seems a silly thing to go back a few releases just because of a feature that you can quite easily turn on and off.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Barman58]

In addition to the above post by Jimbo one of the major changes to the ribbon in 2010 is that it is fully customizable

 

[garysgold]

That's reason enough for me to upgrade when I can.

 

[Barman58]

Hello Gary,

It's been said that "80% of word users only use 20% of the features" but as the actual 20% varies with each user all the functions are required.

I found the ribbon a little strange at first and it's the fact that the functions available are fixed that has I think stopped a lot of business people making the switch (it's not always about cost ), and i was amazes that Microsoft made the ribbon fixed in the first place

 

[rush2112]

Hello Gary,

It's been said that "80% of word users only use 20% of the features" but as the actual 20% varies with each user all the functions are required.

I found the ribbon a little strange at first and it's the fact that the functions available are fixed that has I think stopped a lot of business people making the switch (it's not always about cost ), and i was amazes that Microsoft made the ribbon fixed in the first place

My place of employment switched to 2007 a few weeks ago and there was a LOT of complaining about it due to the ribbon. I've grown used to it an really like the new interface. Especially in 2010.

 

[z3r010]

When 2007 first came out I trialed it on a small group of users, the support requests from this group massively increased, so being the lazy admin that I am, I rolled them back to 2003 and scrapped all further rollout plans.

 

[garysgold]

Hi Guys,

I still am having a hard time finding stuff on the ribbons. Office 2000 was the last one I used and I had all the things I used most right in front of me all the time. I can see why they have all the stuff in there for people to use, but I want to organize it my way. 2007 has a bar for that, but it is small and limited. I've stopped using Word for letters and am now using Corel Draw (Wordperfect is embedded) for letters. I'll switch back if I can arrange things as I want.

Gary

 

[john3347]

@#$%^* Ribbon

HI all

Why this ribbon causes so much problems I can't understand.

A little bit of "RTFM" and you'll see on Office 2007 (and 2010) pressing CTRL+F1 gets rid of it on all the office apps.

To re-instate it just press CTRL+F1 again.

Seems a silly thing to go back a few releases just because of a feature that you can quite easily turn on and off.

Cheers
jimbo

Good Day Jimbo.

I did mention in my post that I had "read the FM" and had, in addition, taken a couple of online classes to learn how the @#$%^&* ribbon works. I also spent quite a numbers of hours over a 6 month period of time becoming familiar with it. I am familiar with the little up arrow at the far right of the menu bar which hides the @#$%^&* ribbon. And as I stated, I do (did) keep it hid until needed. (I tend to use mouse rather than keyboard shortcuts.) The fact remains that the @#$%^&* ribbon is anything in the world but intuitive. One must rely strictly on memory to perform whatever action they wish to perform, as no step leads logically to another. As evidenced by the 2003 to 2007 guide published by Microsoft (I'm too lazy to look up the website at the moment. I'm sure you are familiar with it anyway) it requires 3 to 5 motions (mouse clicks) in 2007 to perform the same operation that was/is possible to perform in 1 to 2 motions in 2003. If it were possible to actually turn off the ribbon and use a normal drop down menu with sub menus that are logically arranged and automatically open when one hovers over them, I would do so and not have problem with the @#$%^&* ribbon. Until then, to me and my arthritic fingers and feeble mind, the ribbon is inefficient, un-intuitive, and undesireable. That's "why this ribbon causes so much problem".

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

 

[Barman58]

Hi All,

Goodies time

I assume that the MS conversion mentioned was ....

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100744321033.aspx

and for those who are looking to get the Word 2003 menu in Word 2007 have a look here ...

http://www.technixupdate.com/ubitme...-windows-2003-in-office-2007-and-office-2010/UBit Schweiz: UBitMenu (languages)

   Warning

I have yet to fully test this free add-on so I would advise anyone trying it to take all the normal precautions

 

[john3347]

I'm sure "In due course" it should appear on Technet for more testers to get it 100% legally.

Can anybody tell me if it's been improved from the "leaked" version from around April / May.

I found the (at that time) white bland background horrible - not possible to customise it further - and didn't see any particular reason to upgrade from Office 2007. The only advantage at that time was the fact that a 64 bit version would eventually be available but for these types of applications it doesn't really matter if it's 32 / 64 bit since even a large spreadsheet is unlikely to test the resources of even a quite modest modern laptop.

However this was a very early probable even pre-alpha version so I hope its a lot better now.

Any testers out there -- significant differences from 2007 -- from the point of a Workstation user --not really interested in the "Windows Live" or "Corporate collaboration" pieces.

Cheers
jimbo

Jimbo, there is a quite enhanced photo management capability in Word 2010 beta that did not exist in 2007. There are a few other added features that I have not had (or have not taken) the opportunity to explore. Even though I despise the ribbon, the beta version that I downloaded from TechNet about one week ago does "seem" to offer several new features.

I guess it is not actually beta. It is a "Technical Preview".

 

[john3347]

Hi All,

Goodies time

I assume that the MS conversion mentioned was ....

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100744321033.aspx

There is also a printable version of this same information (PDF if memory serves me correct). I am not at home where I have the printed copy and I cannot find it online at the moment. When I return home next week, I will post the URL for the printable copy for anyone interested.