Microsoft Office Reference Guide

Mar 26, 2004

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In a recent update I described the process of working with version of Office 2007 and Office 2003 documents for an upcoming presentation. I was using a Sony Vaio with Windows XP Pro and had Office 2007 working relatively well, and was able to use presentations from both formats for a demo at InfoComm.

When I got home my Vaio starting acting up and I figured it was time to upgrade. I purchased a Dell XPS 1210 and I had to decide whether to continue with Windows XP or use Vista Home. I got a Core 2 Duo Centrino with one gig of RAM and a 7200 rpm hard drive.

Since I had Vista Ultimate on my desktop I figured why go with a soon to be obsolete operating system and went with Vista Home on my new Dell.

I won't go into every detail of the pain involved in configuring my new Dell to work with my Vista desktop but I will give you a bit of a taste...

First of all I got a 7200 RPM Hitachi drive in the Dell because I surmised that the sloth of the Vaio was due in large part to the exhaustion of the 4200 RMP hard drive that was its original storage.

I expected the Dell to scream. Instead when I loaded Office 2007 on the Dell and set up my email in Outlook 2007, I could not tell whether or not I had clicked anything. Windows opened willy nilly and closed when they felt like it.

I had described last month the problems involved with upgrading from Outlook 2003 to 2007 and the impossibility of uninstalling one version to work with the other.

On the Dell I decided to go with 2007 from the outset to avoid any such issues. What I got was a secondary nightmare.

Typing a simple email on the Dell in Outlook 2007 results in a delay of anywhere up to five seconds between the time the keys are struck and the letters appear on the screen.

I kid you not. A search on Google disclosed that this is not an isolated problem. Pages and pages of fixes are available, many of which I tried, and one of which forced my system into a recovery and restore which removed most of the customizations that I had painstakingly installed throughout the day.

I was ready to return the Dell when I discovered that this situation did not exist in Word, where fortunately I do most of my writing. It also did not exist in Outlook 2007 on my desktop which is running Vista Ultimate.

Since as many of you know Outlook uses Word as its email editor, the discrepancy in performance remains a mystery, and will remain such until the next imminent patch for Vista, which, ironically, was announced today.

However, whether I would endeavor to install a "beta patch" to fix either of my Vista installations remains an open question.

I persevered — partly because the beauty of Vista on the Dell screen was amazing. But I don't need beauty if I can't fricking type.

But then I ran into my second large issue — file and printer sharing...

With my Vaio and Windows XP Pro I was able to make its desktop immediately available to my Vista desktop with a minimum of fuss so that I could move files across.

I dutifully assigned the Dell to the same workgroup and tried to make its folders shared and visible. I did the same with the Vista Ultimate desktop PC.

I also reconfigured the Firewall setting from my Windows OneCare account to accommodate the sharing. (Don't get me started on OneCare — I got it so that I could feel safe on Vista and if five minutes go by without an intrusive window popping up, I can't believe it). It could be the most annoying software ever created. On a recent nag it suggested I back up my files, which I gladly would if I could get networking to function properly!

Anyway, the breakthrough in file sharing was to go into the Network and Sharing Center (where believe me I had already been on numerous occasions) and set my workgroup (or network) from public to private.

Figure 1308

To me this was counterintuitive since I figured public (the default) would be easier — I figured (wrongly) that being public meant I accepted the apparent risk of easier networking and would immediately see my other files and folders.

Amazingly my trusty Vaio remained visible to both my Dell and desktop PC running Windows XP — I contemplated using it as an intermediary location for file sharing but decided it would be a huge waste.

Instead I finally got what I wanted — the ability to seamless transfer files between my Dell laptop and desktop Documents and Desktop locations. Whew!

Last night I had to reconfigure my wireless router (pre Vista) and managed to do it and when I tried setting up my network sharing this morning, Vista wanted to take another crack at it "automatically." I respectfully declined.

Gee, it only took a day and a half.

Oh, about the printers — I am batting .500. My Brother MultiFunction had Vista drivers (amazing) which allowed me to set it up as a remote shared printer over wireless from the Dell.

Alas my Samsung Laser showed up as a network printer but I could not connect without looking for Vista drivers, which I was too exhausted to do.

As an aside, I also had to download an updated version of Quicken for $30 to work with Vista; the alternative was trying a fix and installing my old version as Administrator and when it failed on my first attempt I gave up and paid the thirty bucks to Intuit.

This is the third of fourth major OS upgrade I have endured with Microsoft, so I am open to a bit of pain and I must confess to some masochistic tendencies. But I am only three days into the Dell installation and I am already wiped out.

Finally, I had of course backed up numerous important files on DVD media prior to starting up the Dell — so far its DVD drive has failed to open several of the discs. Should I even bother trying to figure out why? I used the Vista DVD burning software (with the correct Mastering option) to burn the damn discs and they now some of them won't open on Vista on my Dell!

I have some other topics lined up for this month but this rant may continue. I'll keep you posted.

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