Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

Today Microsoft released the Beta version of Office 2010. It is due to go on sale early next year but for now you can download a free version and run it alongside your present MS Office version. Bear in mind this is a Beta version so there will still be a few bugs in it but it is a good way to find out if you like the new programs and judge for yourself if you want to buy it when it is finally released commercially.

There are two versions a 32 bit and a 64 bit. If you have any version of MS Office installed you need the 32 bit version. If however you don’t run MS Office and you have 64 bit hardware and a 64 bit version of Windows then you can download and install the 64 bit version. So let’s get down to how you do it assuming you have Office already and are installing a 32 bit version.

1. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx register and download the 32 bit version to your HDD.
2. Don’t forget to print the Product key page or you won’t be able to run Office when you have installed it.
3. If you use it, backup Outlook because you can only run one version of Outlook on any one computer. This isn’t strictly necessary because 2010 will import all your contacts, appointments and emails to the new version but applying murphy’s law (If it can go wrong it will) BACK IT UP.
4. In The programs folder on C: (Programs x86 if you are running a 64 bit version of Windows) make a new folder Microsoft Office 2010.
   You do this so that you can have two versions of Office on your computer at the same time, if you don’t 2010 will uninstall your present version of Office and replace it with 2010.
5. Navigate to where you saved the download from Microsoft
6. Click on the file ProfessionalPlus.exe
7. The computer will extract the compressed installation files.
8. The next window is the licence – accept it and click on next.
9. If you do not have Office on your computer click on install and accept the all defaults from here on in.
10. If you do have Office click on Custom.
11. On the Install Options window first choose the applications you want to install.
12. Click on the File Location tab and browse to the Microsoft Office 2010 folder you made in the Program Files (x86) folder.
13. Lastly fill in your details on the User Information tab then click on Install
14. Let the install run and don’t try to do anything on your computer till it has finished.

You now have Office 2010 on your computer. Now you need to activate it.

Open Word and follow the instructions on the Product Key page you printed to activate and register your installation like this:

1. Open Word and click on the File tab. Click on Help in the left pane.
2. Click ‘Change Product Key’ in the right pane.
3. Type in the key from the product key page you printed and check the box to activate automatically.
4. On the next window click install – I know this doesn’t make sense but please just do it. Word will connect to the Internet and activate the whole of Office.
5. Close and restart Word.

That’s it Office is installed and activated.

I have a 32 bit version of Office 2010 on my main desktop machine and a 64 bit version on my file server. On first impressions I like it a lot but watch this space I will use it for a while then come back here to share my likes and dislikes with you.

Windows 7 problems and a new task

Since my last post I have finished the rebuild of my network and helped one friend to reload his desktop computer with Windows 7. This time it didn't all go smoothly and we hit an error that, judging from the forums, is all too common. The error is that W7 refuses to activate over the Internet and will not run Windows Update. The error codes given are 80072EFE and 80072EE2. Microsoft are curiously silent on this one as they only have one page in the knowledge base that refers to this problem and frankly the advice given is tongue in cheek and doesn't work.

The forums are no better they suggest you do all sorts of things like deleting the catroot2 folder and switching various services on and off. I am not going to list them because I suspect that none of them are a sure fire way of fixing this problem - if you want to have a look for yourselves type 'Error 80072EFE Windows 7' into Google and start reading.

The root of the problem is that your connection to the Internet times out when you try to connect to the Microsoft update/activation servers. The problem is not at Microsoft's end it is on your local machine and I tracked it down on my friend's machine to the native Microsoft drivers for his Ethernet ports weren't the right ones. I went to the Motherboard makers website, found the W7 drivers then downloaded and installed them. Once I had done this I found that by using the built in Administrators Account, I could both activate and update his computer. I know this is only a partial cure but does give him a fully working machine. So come on Microsoft finger out let's have a proper solution.

Now that my network upgrade is all but finished (I am still waiting for my wife to decide about her laptop), I have, in theory at least, some time on my hands. I found out that our local college was offering a free (yes I did say free) Creative Writing course. I enjoy writing or this blog wouldn't exist so I thought it might be fun to go and hone my wordsmith skills and meet some new people at the same time.

We are now two weeks into the course and my free time has vanished. This may be a free course but it isn't just a time to go and have a good natter over coffee as some courses in FE are. The homework this week was to build a profile of the main character in a story you might write. Sounds easy, ten minutes work. It has taken me 9 x A4 pages and 4,155 words to complete the task. I did wonder about the grin on Sarah's face when she handed out the work sheets (Sarah is our tutor and an author in her own right under the pen name Charlotte Stein).

Today is college day and we have to hand in our assignments. Bearing in mind our class ranges in age from 19 to 82, some have reading difficulties and/or other disabilities and none of us have tried anything like this before, unless you count this blog and my website, it is going to be an interesting couple of hours to see how this diverse group have tackled the assignment.
The course has brought to the surface the idea for a story that has been floating around in my mind for some years. I am an avid reader of Science Fiction and have at one time or another read most of the output of the masters like Asimov, Heinlein, Dr EE Smith, HG Wells etc., so I know something about the worlds and time lines they created. I hope I haven't rehashed one of their themes but this is the idea on which my story is built.

Consider what might happen if it was revealed that for the last eleven thousand years a group of off world species had been observing and recording the people of Earth’s progress in the fields of science, religion, politics, education and health. What would the reaction of the world’s religious, political, scientific and academic leaders be to the knowledge we have not been alone throughout our climb from hunter gatherers to our present level of sophistication. Especially when the turning points in our history have not only been witnessed and recorded but that anyone with access to the Internet can now see exactly what happened.

I have a couple of chapters in draft form and will discuss them with Sarah if I get a chance. I am finding that this sort of writing is hard work and needs self discipline and organisation if you are to make any progress. I am hoping that by the end of the course in February I will have a better idea how to turn my thoughts and ideas into a readable book.

Can I update my computer to Windows 7?

Since the 22nd of October several people have asked me if they can upgrade their present computer. The short answer usually is I don't know because they haven't got an idea what the spec of their present machine is and if it is one I built, I can't remember the spec of all the machines I have built over the years.

So let's kick off this week with what Microsoft say is the minimum spec a computer must have to run Windows 7.

• 1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
• 1 GB of RAM (32-bit); 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 20 GB of available disk space (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

It is many a long year since I had a computer with a spec this low so I can only guess just how slowly a computer with this spec would run loading a notorious memory hog like MS Word.

So now we know what Microsoft say will run, let's have a look at what you would need to make a business orientated computer run smoothly and quickly.

• 2 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
• 2 GB of RAM (32-bit); 3 GB of RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 20 GB of available disk space (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

As you can see there isn't a lot of difference except a bit more memory (memory is about £20 per Gigabyte at the moment) and any computer build/bought in the past three years will have a processor (CPU) of well over 1 GHz with the one exception of some low spec laptops and netbooks.

A good rough and ready guide to upgradeability is that if your computer is already running any version of Vista then it will run Windows 7.

To show why this is here are the minimum specs for Vista compared to those for Windows 7.

	XP	Vista	Windows 7
CPU	300Mhz	1 Ghz	1 GHz
RAM	128Mb	1Gb	1Gb (2 Gb x64)
Graphics	SVGA	DX9/128Mb	DX9/WDDM1.0
HDD	1.5Gb	40Gb/15Gb Free	16Gb/20 for x64

As you can see the specs are similar except Windows 7 requires a lot less HDD space unless you need the 64 bit version which not many business users do. What you will notice if you load Windows 7 is that it runs faster and smoother than Vista ever did and with a lot less of the annoying security pauses that plagued all the versions of Vista that I tried. In my opinion, the bottom line is that Microsoft have at last developed an operating system that doesn't need a super computer to run properly and isn't bloated with services and applications that the average customer will never use. Followers of my Blog will know I have loaded it on all our computers at home and it is running just fine.

You can download this blog as a PDF here