Question:
Am wanting to upgrade from Office 2000 but only really need Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint as am buying new laptop as the CMOS battery has died on my old one and can't find it to replace it!
Have seen good laptop spec running Windows XP Media Centre (would like Vista but can't find what I want for under £500) so am not sure which to get or which is best. Would need to get a higher spec 2007 version of the software but is 2007 much better than 2003?
Will promise to post laptop link but need to secure my purchase first before you all beat me to it!
Thanks for help!
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as the CMOS battery has died on my old one and can't find it to replace it!
Would seem a shame to give up on your laptop because of a 20p battery. Do you mean you can't find a replacement battery or you can't find where the battery is in the laptop?
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Would seem a shame to give up on your laptop because of a 20p battery. Do you mean you can't find a replacement battery or you can't find where the battery is in the laptop?
Can't actually find where the battery is located! Laptop has been taken apart by repairer and they couldn't find it anywhere. Am having to reset the time in the system settings each time I start up in order to override the CMOS (now it starts getting a bit technical and am not sure what I'm talking about!).
Laptop is 8 years old now so it's not as if I haven't got value for money. It's also very noisy and overheats regularly!
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..Laptop is 8 years old now so it's not as if I haven't got value for money. It's also very noisy and overheats regularly!
That explains why you can’t find a battery.
They didn’t have one then.
They were steam powered.
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That explains why you can’t find a battery.
They didn’t have one then.
They were steam powered.
Very funny!
Judging from the heat it chucks out and the noise the fan makes that makes sense.
You can't deny that it's a good innings for a laptop that's been consistently used over that period (was a Rock - literally!).
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Office 2007 is a huge leap forward from 2003.
Outlook isn't much different, main difference is the nifty taskbar on the right side and the ability to view attachments within the email.
However, Excel, Word and powerpoint are very different from before, instead of the little fiddely "File,View" etc menus, you get a ribbon bar at the top with large colourful and helpful buttons to do what you need. This is arranged in sections, so in Excel you have an "Insert" tab, that tab has all the tools for inserting items like graphs and pictures.
It looks wierd to start with, but after a few days, it is more intuative than previous version. One tip, if you are sending files form Office 2007 to people who have previous versions, change the save file typ to *.xls, *.doc format (called compatability mode) from the main options in each program, or they will not be able to open them.
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outlook also ties in with your gadgets on the desktop. if you are buying from scratch then go for 2007. you can download a 90 day trial from the microsoft website.
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If you are using XP, use Office 2003. If you are using Vista, use Office 2007.
A good MSE-style source of Office 2003 Standard (Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook) is the Student & Teachers edition. Impoverished students have to buy it, but then sell it on eBay. However, it comes with 3 licences. Even if you have to ever re-install it and the licences have all been used up, just ring the 0800 number, speak to the invariably pleasant person in invariably sunny California, who will give you a reinstallation code (a software pirate couldn't do this for every copy they made). Mine cost me £45.99 (or £13 per application).
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Thanks for your comments pistonbroke. I did a quick trial on the Microsoft site as am running Win98 on my old laptop so can't do the free trial and it did seem intuitive from what I could see but would take a few days to get used to. Am thinking it may cause problems at work if I got 2007 as I'll end up getting confused! I'm only one of 5 to have been allowed to upgrade to Office 2003 so far (only because I needed to run some software that didn't work with 2000). No expense spared!
Will be running Office XP. Would like Vista but want a 17 inch laptop but can't afford to have both so the screen wins hands down. THat's why was was debating so thanks for the advice Stephen.
Am confused about gadgets on desktop though - what am I supposed to have?
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Whatever you want, the default is a cheesy tile game and a clock, there are a few simple ones built in like weather reports, rss feeds and notes, you can download hundreds of other gadgets to use as well.
If you are getting a new laptop, that would probably come with Vista anyway.. as posted before you can get Office 2007 Student from fleabay
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Desktop gadgets are a Vista thing.
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Desktop gadgets are a Vista thing.
In which case I'll just have to dream then...
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Desktop gadgets are a Vista thing.
But you've been able to get desktop gadgets for XP for ages? Gadgets are pretty much just standalone mini applications. You can get the same thing with widgets the only difference being you need an engine to run the widgets, such as DesktopX, Yahoo widgets, kapsules. Difference between gadgets and widgets isn't a completely firm definition but it's good rule of thumb. DesktopX Pro allows users to create standalone gadgets, and as I said they've been available for XP for a long time. The only real difference is that Vista's gadgets are Microsoft's own. But I don't think there's anything special that can't already be done on XP in terms of gadgets/widgets.
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But you've been able to get desktop gadgets for XP for ages? Gadgets are pretty much just standalone mini applications. You can get the same thing with widgets the only difference being you need an engine to run the widgets, such as DesktopX, Yahoo widgets, kapsules. Difference between gadgets and widgets isn't a completely firm definition but it's good rule of thumb. DesktopX Pro allows users to create standalone gadgets, and as I said they've been available for XP for a long time. The only real difference is that Vista's gadgets are Microsoft's own. But I don't think there's anything special that can't already be done on XP in terms of gadgets/widgets.
Thanks for explaining this Superscraper. Think this functionality has just passed me by!
Am really really torn between the 2 versions.
Can get Student edition of 2003 for £100 with computer which means I get free delivery worth £10 so it will cost me £90 and I can put in on the desktop too as it has 3 licenses.
Have found plenty of boxed academic versions of Office basic 2007 (same bundle of programmes) with 2 licenses though on ebay for £122.50 inc VAT and delivery. Is it worth paying the extra cash when I'll only be running XP Media Centre?
So confused now with all the options I don't know what to do.
Can anyone help? THanks
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Think that functionality must have passed me by but will look out for it when I get my new laptop.
Laptop I'm going to get only comes with XP Media Centre though hence part of the reason why it's a good deal.
Problem is, I need Outlook, Powerpoint, Excel and Word which 2003 does as a nice student package with 3 licenses but you can't get this from what I can tell with 2007 as you have to go for a bigger version - they've dropped Outlook for OneNote(?) or something and you can only put it on one machine.
Also would you recommend an OEM version or the retail version?
Thanks for your help.
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try open office which has all the stuff office has but is free and is compatible with ms
i've downloaded it for my daughter and she has no probs using it
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Thanks, have heard good things about Open Office but know the MS programmes really well now and record my own macros to put on my toolbars and know all the short cuts too.
IS this possible in Open Office?
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Just use 2003, the look & feel is like 2000 - and with 2007 around it's a hell of a lot cheaper.
If you have the disks you could try installing 2000 on the new computer - I'm running 2000 under XP with no problems at all