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My first post using Office 2007 and Windows Vista January 3, 2007

Posted by balajinjl in Office 2007, Windows Vista.
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Hi All,

During holidays I installed Vista and Office 2007 on my Toshiba Tecra M3. Some of the things you need to be aware before installing Vista and Office 2007.

  1. Don’t install on lower-end hardware. My recommendation is 2 GB RAM and 2 Gig Proc.
  2. In order to install Vista on Toshiba, you need to upgrade your BIOS. Check Toshiba’s web site and download the corresponding BIOS for your laptop model. It is generally an iso file. Create a boot CD and boot using this CD. Upgrade your BIOS.
  3. Don’t try to upgrade your BIOS from Windows. I had issues with that.
  4. Back-up your files (Vista also saves a copy for you)
    1. My documents
    2. Application Data
    3. Local Settings
    4. Book marks, favorites etc
    5. And any other important files
  5. Install Vista and follow the prompts.
  6. Configure Windows Experience Index via Control panel – Performance and Information Tools.

My first impression of Windows Vista

  • It has a nice glossy look, heavily borrowed from Apple.
  • Out of the box support for Least-privilege User Account (LUA). Finally Windows got a LUA that really works. I think now Windows is on par with Linux / Unix in terms of LUA.
  • I can see lot of improvements in terms of system lock down. This is really good. Some people complain about multiple prompts but I don’t see this as an issue. If you are doing administrative tasks the OS should double check who you are and that’s a good thing.
  • All the user files are under [installdrive]\users. IMO correct way to organize the user files.

Net-net

High marks for making it secure out of the box. Good work.

My first impression of Office 2007

  • It looks cool.
  • Saves documents as PDF. I was using PDFCreator earlier.
  • Supports Blogs !!!
  • Ribbon menu bar – I am not impressed. IMO its bulky. You have to relearn the locations of all the menu options again. I will create a cheat sheet for menu options and its new location.     (I will continue to update the following table)

     

Office 2003 Options

Office 2007 locations

Document Properties

Office button – Prepare – properties

Help

I couldn’t find it in the menu. I used F1 key.

(Found it. It’s a small ‘?’ tucked on right-hand side corner. I was expecting it as a text dropdown in the menu bar)

Find & Replace

I couldn’t find it. I am using ctrl – H

 

Things I would like to do

  • Reduce the icon size in the ribbon. I don’t like big icons.
  • Option to switch back to old menu. Like in Windows Start menu you can switch to ‘Classic’ menu.

I would be happy if someone could let me know how to do this.

HTH,
Balaji NJL

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