Alexander’s Blog

Microsoft posted Windows Vista for MSDN subscribers late last night. Office Professional 2007 was already posted on November 12, along with Visio, Project, InfoPath, Groove, and OneNote 2007.

Office Professional includes the following products.

1. Microsoft Office Word 2007
2. Microsoft Office Excel 2007
3. Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
4. Microsoft Office Publisher 2007
5. Microsoft Office Access 2007
6. Microsoft Office Outlook with Business Contact Manager 2007

If you are curious about what’s included in 2007 Microsoft Office system suites, here’s a graphic from Microsoft that breaks down all the products included in various versions of Office.

1 Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 is scheduled for release in the second quarter of 2007. International versions of Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 are scheduled for release in the second half of 2007

Check out the recently published Windows Vista security guide. This guide provides helpful recommendations on how you can strengthen the security of your client computers running Windows Vista in a domain environment.

The guide also includes step-by-step procedures and tools, such as GPOAccelerator.wsf script which lets you to run a script that automatically creates all the Group Policy objects (GPOs) you need to apply the security guidance. In addition, there’s a Windows Vista Security Guide Settings.xls file included with the guide that you will find useful.

Appendix A is huge and contains security Group Policy settings. You can download the security guide here.

I have installed the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats on several computers. On one of the computers I wasn’t able to open the new Word 2007 files (.DOCX format). I started to look into the issue with the compatibility pack and discovered the following.

There are at least a couple of versions of compatibility pack out there, may be more. When I downloaded the version 12.0.4518.1014 on November 12, 2006, as shown below, it wasn’t listed as Beta, even though I downloaded it from this URL that states clearly that it was a Beta.

When I wasn’t able to open the new .DOCX file, I got a pop-up message that said the following:

This message indicates that I am trying to open a released version of Office file, which was not the case. I was opening a file that was created in Office Beta 2. I clicked OK to download the newest version of the compatibility pack. The new version was available here. The new version 12.0.4407.1001 was published on November 6 and I just downloaded it today (November 14, 2006). The size of the file (O2007Cnv.exe) in Explorer was 27,319KB. The file version listed in the properties of the file is 12.0.4407.1001. However, the Add or Remove Program shows the verison to be different (12.0.4407.1005). Obviously, one of them is incorrect.

It makes no sense that a version 12.0.4518.1014 that was posted on November 12 wasn’t a beta, yet a version 12.0.4407.1001 (which may actually be 12.0.4407.1005) available today is suddenly a beta. It could be that Microsoft has posted an older version today and accidentally, or intentionally, removed the newer version from their Web site.

Just out of curiosity, I tried to download a version from this Beta site once again today and it turns out that today this is the same version 12.0.4407.1001. So what happened to the version 12.0.4518.1014 that was not a beta? I don’t have a clue. Suddenly all the posted versions are now beta, which they weren’t a couple of days ago.

I have tried every possible combination you can imagine to get the converter to work. I have removed them one by one and even tried installing both versions at the same time; tried the Repair option shown in the screen shot above and rebooted the computer. No matter what I do I am still not able to get the converter to work on one of my Windows XP computer. I have the Beta version installed on other computers and it opens all files (pre-release and RTM). Again, this doesn’t explain why it is opening files on one computer and complaining that the exact same converter can’t open files on another computer.

Bottom line……..expect similar problems while the product is new. Hopefully the dust will settle and eventually the converter will work like a charm. If you have experienced any issues with the converter, please let me know. I will gather all the data and report to Microsoft so they can fix any potential problems.

PocketMac SecureNotes is an add-on Mac software that allows users to store encrypted data. It’s a database-driven tool that acts as a safe deposit box for Macintosh users.

PocketMac SecureNotes allows Mac users to store their crucial data, such as driver’s license number, credit card numbers, Social Security Numbers, and other confidential data in a single, secure, encrypted location. The product works with Macintosh OS X, versions 10.3 and 10.4. It also works with the PocketMac for BlackBerry and uses 448-bit encryption. According to the vendor’s Web site “…with that level of encryption, one billion computers each searching one billion keys per second, would need more than 10*10^24 years to recover that information. Since the age of the universe is estimated at 10*10^9 years, obviously, no one is going to stumble on this information by trial and error.”

The product costs $29.95. You can purchase or download a 15-day free trial version here.

Today Microsoft released Windows Vista to manufacturing. Microsoft has already announced that Windows Vista will be broadly available as a stand-alone product or pre-installed on new PCs on January 30, 2007. It will be made available to Volume License customers later this month. TechNet Plus and MSDN subscribers will also be able to get the final version later this month.

Windows Vista will be available in four different editions.

1. Home Basic: For basic home needs such as e-mail and Internet access.
2. Home Premium: For the best home computing and entertainment.
3. Business: For small and mid-sized organizations.
4. Ultimate: For work and entertainment, this is the most complete edition.

There is another version called Windows Vista Starter which will be available in 119 markets. Windows Vista Starter will be what Microsoft calls an “affordable” price version. The starter version is designed for first-time PC users. Here’s the fine print about Vista Starter:

Windows Vista Starter is not currently scheduled to be available in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, or other high income markets as defined by the World Bank.

There will be yet another version called Windows Vista Enterprise. However, this version will not be available to general public. It will be available to customers who have PCs covered by Microsoft Software Assurance or a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.

Jim Allchin pointed out the following unique Windows Vista milestones.

1. This is the first time Microsoft has supported a broad array of product skus to help address different customer segments—and they’re all supported using a single product image. The same DVD can be used to install any of the product images.

2. It is truly a worldwide release. For the first time Microsoft has released Windows simultaneously in 5 languages! 18 languages will be available at the general launch in January. Microsoft will ship 32 language editions within 100 days of US English RTM. And eventually Windows Vista will be available in over 100 languages.

3. Windows Vista supports more hardware than ever. Hundreds of OEMs and thousands of systems builders will pre-install Windows Vista, which will have more than 50% more device drivers inbox at RTM than Windows XP had, plus thousands more will be on Windows Update before general availability.

4. Windows Vista is the most tested release ever. This is the first Microsoft product that has incorporated the Secure Development Lifecycle from the beginning, and has employed stringent quality gates for each release milestone.

5. There have been millions of downloads of the pre-release versions, and there are already over 60,000 machines at Microsoft running Windows Vista—more than any prior Windows release at RTM.

6. This is the first time that Microsoft customers will be able to deploy worldwide on diverse hardware all with a single IT-managed image. And it’s the first time that this image can be serviced offline.

7. Because of the great improvements in deployment tools, it’s the first time that leading OEMs will be able to drive their mission-critical manufacturing process for building and configuring machines using only inbox tools. Windows Vista deploys Windows Vista!

8. Windows Vista is the fastest installing version of Windows when installing on then current generation hardware. Install times of Windows Vista on normal desktop class hardware regularly clock in at between 15 and 20 minutes.