No more hiding in the server room

Office 2010

So Microsoft have released their latest and greatest version of the venerable Office suite.

In a move that is completely unlike me, I have grabbed a copy (got to love TechNet subscriptions!), installed it on my desktop and am giving it a whirl.

Have you tried it? Do you have any comments or thoughts on the new version? Are you looking forward to it?

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Permalink Reply by Dan Taylor on June 17, 2010 at 3:16pm

I have it on my laptop, and soon to be on my desktop too - so far I am liking it.

I'm most looking forward to the SharePoint Integration features it offers as we are corporately looking at deploying SharePoint 2010 in the next quarter.

I'm not sure how its going to affect our users though, they have been languishing on Office 2003 I think the ribbon might stifle productivity for a while until they get used to it.

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Permalink Reply by Graycat on June 17, 2010 at 4:16pm

I'm liking the new look too and it certainly seems snappier than 2007 was though that may just be my machine.

All of your users are on 2003? I'm really jealous! We've got everything back to 2000 and only killed the last '98 at the beginning of the year! I'm really looking forward to getting our company wide licensing going next month then it'll be bye-bye everything prior to Office 2007 a little pause and then hello everyone on Office 2010 ...... as long as it proves stable of course!

Have you thought about how you're going to deploy Office 2010? Our usual approach of GPO / GPSI isn't available it seems. :(

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Permalink Reply by Dan Taylor on June 17, 2010 at 6:39pm

System Center Configuration Manager will be our deployment channel, we're rolling out Office 2010 with our planned Windows 7 roll out early next year.

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Permalink Reply by John McGrath on June 17, 2010 at 4:49pm

I used Office 2010 for the last 30 days, and I have to admit that I liked it much better than 2007.

The ribbon interface takes getting used to, but it seems to be better organized than 2007 version. The interface itself is snappier, and the Word and Excel applications are the same way. It seems friendlier all the way around.

I installed a copy from Technet also, and the installation process is much faster that 2007. I always wondered if the installation was getting hung up about half way through with 2007, and it didn't seem that way in 2010.

We are jumping from 2003 to 2010 later this year.

We are planning to deploy through Altiris, so it should not be too much of an issue.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Rogers on June 23, 2010 at 5:58pm

We're liking it here, aside from it's little, erm, annoyances* - SCCM and a little bit of the old SneakerNet™ to spread it round our offices

* out of the box: you can't book rooms with Exchange 2003. Once a room has been booked, if you've booked it private, it's private even from you! Grr..

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Permalink Reply by Graycat on June 23, 2010 at 6:16pm

Nice!

The only major issue I've run into so far (other than the whole deployment thing) is Public Folders. Seems you can't access them if they're stored vaguely near an Exchange 2000 box. Fortunately that beast is leaving us soon ..... he says, rapidly installing Exch07 rather than watching the footy! :o)

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Permalink Reply by Noj on January 23, 2011 at 5:02am

I've had a licencing problems with it.
first was when our sales guy didn't realise the client PCs I was replacing were on OEM so didn't sell office with these new shiny PCs. was forced to install the trial - which went well, but accidentally used the same trial key twice on one of the PCs. cant go back from that (iirc the keyless trial lasts 30 days whereas the trial one lasts 60 - wasn't trusting the licenses to get there before it ran out) tried all sorts of things to try change the key for the trial. it won't let you though, so that one was stuck on the 30day keyless one (which I think nags you every time as well)

Another problem was when I cloned a working PC and put it on another PC which had had a failed hard drive - office detected it was on a different machine (this was the OEM licence) and didn't like it. tried the upgrade which I knew asked for a key, which didn't work, then realized there was a way to change the key in the control panel, which also didn't work, at this point office wasn't working at all - tried repair, which also didn't work. eventually un-installed/re-installed which did work (phew). this was the night before I was going on leave and flying to see family. I guess I should have tried the un-installed/re-installed first.

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Permalink Reply by Noj on January 23, 2011 at 5:05am

I've had licensing problems with it.
First was when our sales guy didn't realize the client PCs I was replacing were on OEM so didn't sell office with these new shiny PCs. was forced to install the trial - but accidentally used the same trial key twice on one of the PCs. cant go back from that (iirc the keyless trial lasts 30 days and nags you every time you start it, whereas the trial one lasts 60 - I wasn't trusting the licenses to get there before it ran out) tried all sorts of things to try change the key for the trial. it won't let you though, so that one was stuck on the 30day keyless one, Fortunately the licenses came through (with much nagging from me) before the trial ran out.

Another problem was when I cloned a working PC and put it on another PC which had had a failed hard drive - office detected it was on a different machine (this was the OEM licence) and didn't like it. tried the upgrade which I knew asked for a key, which didn't work, then realized there was a way to change the key in the control panel, which also didn't work, at this point office wasn't working at all - tried repair, which also didn't work. eventually un-installed/re-installed which did work (phew). this was the night before I was going on leave and flying to see family. I guess I should have tried the un-installed/re-installed first.