Microsoft scheduled the next version of its operating system for January 2010.
According to Steve Ballmer, Windows 7 will be closer from Vista than from XP. There will be many changes of course to reach their clients’ expectations.

Apple will probably be updating Snow Leopard for the 4th or 5th time and be working on the next version of Mac OS X (or 11).

He did a lot… Stole Apple’s ideas of course, but let’s be honest, he did a lot of other things!

Today, june 27th, Bill Gates officially leaves his functions in the Microsoft company he created 33 years ago.
Don’t have any comment, we all know what he did: good and bad things like any human being to make of Microsoft the biggest IT company in the World.
This information makes me think that Steve Jobs too will leave Apple soon or late…. Such a sad thought.

You’d answer: “download and install the update”? Too easy!!!
Here are the steps I followed to make it.

• Step One: delete Office 2008!
  
  I used AppZapper to download the suite and its preferences, then, I cleaned up the Application Support folder (in the Library folders) from the Microsoft folders.
  I also deleted the Microsoft User Data folder in the Documents folder.

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Microsoft… I was happy to see the updates to the Office Suite, expecting to see some improvements, but the result is a bit different: Microsoft shows me its nice Setup Assistant everytime I try to open a document (thank God I have Pages and Numbers).
According to MaCNN here are some possible fixes:

1. Word Settings: If you’re experiencing a crash on launching Word 2008, try throwing out its settings file. Look in your home directory - that’s /Users/ and your account’s short name - in Library > Preferences > Microsoft. Toss Word Settings (10) and relaunch Word 2008.
2. Remove the Microsoft AU Daemon from Startup Items: Open System Preferences, then navigate to “Accounts” and click “Startup Items,” then remove Microsoft AU Daemon.
3. Corrupt normal template: The normal template file — located at ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/Normal.dotm appears to be corrupt in many cases of crashing. The fix for the problem is as follows: create a new user account, launch Word 2008 under the new account (it should launch properly if this is the cause), then copy the aforementioned file from the clean (working) account to the same location in the old (crashing) account, replacing the corrupt file.
4. Corrupt Microsoft.plist, etc. files Go to ~/Library/Preferences and delete everything that starts with com.microsoft…. Re-attempt application launch and usage.
5. Corrupt fonts: Remove any recently added fonts temporarily, or use a tool like Font Doctor to search for corrupt fonts.

I’m going to have a lot of fun!

Another problem has been reported by some other users: the installation issues!
The fix after the jump…
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2 important updates by their sizes and number of bug fixes improving stability, performances and general compatibility for the Microsoft Office suite.

Office 2004 goes 11.5.0 (45 Mb), Office 2008 updated to version 12.1.1 (153 Mb) and the new Open XML documents converter 1.0 (45 Mb).

1. Office 2004 11.5.0:
   Adds read/write compatibility for Open XML Format (.docx, .xlsx, etc.) files if installed with the Open XML Format Converter
   Better stability and printing/page setup fixes for Word
   Better paste compatibility with Office 2008 for all apps
   Powerpoint fixes for stability with large documents
   Download here.
2. Office 2008 12.1.1:
   Several issues are fixed with the updates, including charting problems, Entourage crashing when the computer wakes from sleep, and issues regarding converting documents to and from the Open XML Format.
   Download here.

 NB: before installing the Office 2008 update, you gotta make sure you have version 12.1.0 installed. Yes… No combos for Microsoft Updates.

—- Original Message —-
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack … so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.
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