Office 2007 Beta (1 Viewer)

[modest]

Not sure if this has been posted yet. Microsoft has released beta of Office 2007, this includes a new UI to many of the old office programs. For the time being you can get it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/getthebeta.mspx

Beta 2 of Internet Explorer 7 has also been released:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx


And I know I've posted on this before, but just so it is in the same place, Visual Studio 2005 can be downloaded here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/products/trial/



There are also many business-oriented programs in beta for testing. If you own a small business, or think your company may have a need ~ test it out, get a feel, for free.

 

[modest]

bump - possibly make this a sticky -

if this thread was useful, please post. it will let me know how up-to-date everyone is staying and whether or not i should post other links like this in the future

 

[retro]

Microsoft are now charging for the download of the Beta!

OK, so it is only $1.50, but that is converted to your local currency, then tax/VAT is added (most likely Microsoft will use their usual trick of using their Irish base and charging us 19% VAT in the UK!)... so it soon mounts up. And how many people might try it? 1 million? 10 million? More? OK, so the bandwidth costs would be huge, but then again, Microsoft have ALWAYS had huge bandwidth costs, surely? Looks like they're going to make millions on the beta alone!!! Or you can pay £6.86 +VAT for the media. Hmm, 15p for a DVD-R and shipping even from the US could be done for less than that, most likely! They certainly stand to make a tidy sum!

How's everyone finding the beta? I can't get on with the new look. It is so different, it is like learning a totally new product nearly!!

 

[Banana]

One cavaet-

I had installed my Beta with understanding that old version (2003) would preserved. It did... except for Outlook. Bye bye Outlook 2003. So I had to go cold turkey on Outlook.

Generally, I find it so-so. More eye candies than real changes. I don't really think it much as a update but as a lateral move.

 

[Bee]

Microsoft are now charging for the download of the Beta!

OK, so it is only $1.50, but that is converted to your local currency, then tax/VAT is added (most likely Microsoft will use their usual trick of using their Irish base and charging us 19% VAT in the UK!)... so it soon mounts up. And how many people might try it? 1 million? 10 million? More? OK, so the bandwidth costs would be huge, but then again, Microsoft have ALWAYS had huge bandwidth costs, surely? Looks like they're going to make millions on the beta alone!!! Or you can pay £6.86 +VAT for the media. Hmm, 15p for a DVD-R and shipping even from the US could be done for less than that, most likely! They certainly stand to make a tidy sum!

How's everyone finding the beta? I can't get on with the new look. It is so different, it is like learning a totally new product nearly!!

Typical Microsoft! Every few years they change their products completely to tie programmers to their new versions.

 

[Pat Hartman]

It is not possible to have multiple versions of Outlook due to the way Outlook works.

I went cold-turkey with the Beta in the middle of June. I've logged lots of bugs but so far, I have only one show stopper. A client recently called with a change to an app I built earlier this year and I can't run it with the Beta. The app uses automation to run a mail-merge and I get an error from Word that was corrected with the latest service pack for Office 2003 but now it seems to be back.