And Microsoft didn't have an HCI style bible hence everyone did their own thing. Meanwhile, much as you may hate the control-freakery of Apple, they have enforced common standards not only within their own teams but also for third party developers. It makes switching between applications much easier.
Chris J Dixon wrote: [snip]
If you want to have 1/3rd of your screen taken up with the pointless "ribbon" then get Office 2010. It commits more sins against taste and decency than the Marquis de Sade, it's unusable s**te, but in seems to convince some that it is easier to use.
Meanwhile, OpenOffice does about everything that you would want to do better than MSOffice at a better price (free) and the database is infinitely better than Access.
If IE and explorer are crashing then it might be worth trying a repair install of your original W7 disk, it really is the most stable Windows OS, indeed any OS, I've ever used.
I run W7 Ultimate and it has _never_ crashed .. this is on a desktop and a laptop that's running almost 24/7. I run a fair few bits of old software and really abuse the system in terms of installing and uninstalling stuff that "doesn't work on W7". The only hardware I haven't been able to run on it is a Canon scanner, a relic really with only 300dpi. The laptop has a serial port too (unusual these days) and even serial hardware works, such as an Epson dot matrix printer and a production line torque controller from the '90's. Many softwares run in compatibility mode but they all run!
The only other hardware that hasn't worked is a display driver on another very old laptop, a Pentium, proprietary to Dell so no chance of updating .. but even that works well enough with native MS drivers ..
I have to say that is interesting. Whilst I don't actually run many databases, the ones I have developed over the years have some reasonably involved stuff in them, with a certain amount of associated code, and a few macros.
What can't OpenOffice do that Access can?
Chris
I agree with that. If the basic Windows programs can't run properly, you already have a defective system, and until that's fixed, you will just spin your wheels trying anything else that is uncertain. Where did the new PC come from, maybe take it back and demand that it be made properly workable? Or was it ok until you added some particular item of software? In which case, try removing software and see if it improves (remembering that Uninstall sometimes leaves bits of removed programs behind).
Well, based on helpdesk evidence from ~20k users I'd suggest that 2010 is much easier for inexperienced users. The 1% of features that they want is right there, and all the complex stuff is hidden.
If you want the complex stuff then maybe (although I'd not say it's worse, just different).
Still, we are (as I type this) migrating from Exchange 2007 to 2010. With this we are disabling Outlook 2003 so everyone will finally have to move to
2010 (or 2007 if they really want - but seems largely pointless).Will be interesting to see what the fall out is - we've been pushing for the last few months and feedback in general is 2010 is better once you get over the WTF? moment.
Price is definately better. Word processor far from better. Slow, and not compatible with word docs (which like it or not, is essential for a lot of people).
Dunno about the db, I'm not an access user and never have been so can't comment on that.
Does openoffice have a publisher equivelent these days? That could be handy for people without office pro.
Darren
I find the Excel 2007 ribbon a more logical layout once you get used to it.
,
"Not compatible" to the extent that no-one in my office has noticed that I edit a lot of documents with it.
,
It even opens .docx files.
Fair enough - works for you then :-)
I'm guessing you don't have many docs with footnotes, or headers and footers?
Also, some of the multcolumn stuff is (well, was - I've not tried for 6 months or so) broken.
Might be better with .docx files I guess - they are more open IIRC.
Darren
You know, I've got so used to my ancient XP machine crashing every hour or so that I've forgotten that actually, computers aren't supposed to behave like that!
Trouble is, as soon as I took delivery of the new machine I immediately installed all the stuff I normally use before actually beginning to work on the machine in earnest, so I have no way of knowing whether it was doing this 'out of the box' or whether it's as a result of something I've installed. This 'repair' routine looks pretty damned invasive AFAICS but I suppose I'd better bite the bullet. :(
David
I've just got rid of mine and it didn't once crash, ever
OO is now LibreOffice; v4.5 is due out in a couple of weeks so that could be worth waiting for - although I'll wait for 4.5x just to see if there any little bugs. I haven't used Base (database) but do use Calc (spreadsheet and find it easier than Excel 2003).
It's marginally more complicated than that, but in reality, yes
ITYM v3.5
XP is quite stable these days (and has been since a long since released SP revision). If your old machine crashed regularly, and you've now got new hardware and a new OS and still see crashes then I wonder if you've some piece of badly behaved software..
Something you've installed ont he new machine? Or maybe some dodgy hardware - did you mention a tv card? Could be that
Win 7 and Win XP are both pretty stable.
Darren
Do you by any chance have access to the Home Use Program through use at = =
work?
Publisher, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneNote, Word, Excel, and a few other =
rather less than useful bits and pieces.
Of course, if I change job I have to tell Microsoft...
Bah - give me Excel 2000's proper menus any day - I used to know where everything was!
The other thing I don't like about *all* Office 2007 applications is that I can't make them conform with the "Windows Classic" appearance with rectangular windows with a coloured strip along the top of the active window, and a grey strip on all the others. They insist on doing their own thing - and you can't easily see where the borders of their window are.
I'd say it's almost definitely some hard or software that's causing your issues then, 'cos my old XP was, and still is on an old Thinkpad laptop, going strongly and is stable despite not being turned on for months, then used with a USB hub driving a GPS, Bluetooth, remote trackball and running GPS software whilst bouncing around in my Landrover! I've never had it crash doing this even when connected to a cheap chinese laptop invertor with a bodged connector!
In fact I've never had a properly unstable Windows (or DOS) setup, ever! I've had them crash, but they've always been stable once soft/hardware is actually setup and running .. and it was almost always traced back to 3rd party soft/hardware that caused any crashes. It could be argued that Win(whatever) could have handled this better, but it was never much of an issue for me, even running WinMe .. ;)
I am aware of the scheme, thanks.
I'll simply say that I am now retired ;-)
Chris
I've tried various docx files with OO, LO and Lotus symphony (also free). Most of them get most of the conversion right most of the time, but I've never found one 100% accurate on documents with any degree of fancy formatting; last docx I tried the hanging indents moved and some instances - but not all - of what was supposed to be text comments were turned to visible text.
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