[Security718]

What a crock. Microsoft has already included the SP1 update via Microsoft updates on Tuesday 12/11. I know for a fact as I downloaded it as well as other updates on 3 PC's, so far. So, as far as the promise to give users 30 days is just a big lie.

[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Microsoft delivers Office 2007 SP1 here

[Car54]

Yes, it was in all 3 of my updates (2 XP and 1 Vista).


!Office 2007 Service Pack 1.bmp!

[rgreen4]

Very true. I have mine set to notify me, but not to download. Hughesnet has a 200MB daily "Fair Access" policy and the total download with the 196MB SP1 would have been 206MB. That means after it hit 200, it would revert to a speed slower than dial-up. I unclicked that update and will let it download in the morning. All the more reason to select the notify but don't install option on updates.

[Car54]

Am I off base in thinking that 196MB seemed pretty hefty for a Office service pack? My BitDefender Security Suite is 41MB, it was like downloading 5 Security Suites cp. to 1 Office service pack?

I agree, "notify me and let me install", I always like to know what there up to, and making up for, in the updates.

[Car54]

lol, that's more like it :-) http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140553-c,microsoftoffice/article.html

[Discontented]

Yes it is automatic updates but it will not install on my brand new Sony laptop (error 78f). OK it only has a 60 day trial version of Office 07 but am I going to have to wait everyday for Windows to try to install it and fail?
Are Microsoft ever going to get their act together???

[rgreen4]

First - NO ONE is going to provide updates to a trial software installation. I you want the update, you have buy the full version.

If you want the same version as is already loaded, then I believe you can purchase the unlock. If you only want Excel, Word and Powerpoint, the Home & Student version is about $120 for a disk with a license good for installation on 3 machines. Some don't like it because it does not have Outlook, and some don't like it because it says in the header at the top "non-commercial" after the module name (ie: Microsoft Excel non-commercial use). Not a big deal for me when I have multiple machines and was able to install them for about $40 a machine - a bargain for a good MS product.

[Discontented]

Thanks for that. You totally missed the point. I do not want Office 07. It comes as a trial version on the computer. As it was a new computer I used the Windows update option in Internet Explorer, included in the updates was Office 07 SP1. I did not ask for it, it was given. It was a 198MB download that refused to install. My point was that it should not have been included in the updates if it was only going to install if I had the full paid for version.

How many inexperienced users are going to know how to stop their computers trying to install this Service Pack everyday?

[COMALiteJ]

Hyperbola (n. hie-PER-boe-luh) 1. a geometric conic shape formed by slicing a cone with a plane parallel to the other side of the cone. This shape is also the shape formed by graphing a quadratic equation, and that traversed by an object launched in a somewhat upward direction within the gravity well of a planet and below orbital velocity, such as a cannonball, ballistic missile, or Discontented's point as it went flying right over rgreen4's head.

[rgreen4]

Nothing went over my head. His machine came with a 60 day trial which he did not intend to keep. If he did not intend to keep it he should have removed it. Very Simple. Had he removed it or had he simply (as recommended by the vast majority of regular members) set the downloads to notify, not install) he would have avoided it. If he is on unrestricted broadband, he got the download, it wouldn't install, delete it, remove the 60 trial and end of story.

BTW - you might want to read the section on personal attacks on the Community Standards which you agreed to when you signed up for these forums.

[Discontented]

I pretty much did as you said I should because I have been messing around with computers for 20 years. But millions of computers are sold every year to people with little experience and lots of them come with 60 day trials of Office. What is the sense of including the Service Pack in automatic updates if it is just going to confuse them by not installing?

Anyway why should I not expect the service pack to install with a 60 day trial version? Is it not better for Microsoft if I try the latest version?

[COMALiteJ]

rgreen4, that was not intended as an attack, but merely a bit of levity. I apologize if it was taken as an attack by anyone.
In addition to what Discontented said, what if (and this has happened before) the unpatched trial version contains some serious security flaw(s) that permit the mere presence of the installed trial version to provide crackers with a vector into the OS and/or other non-Office user files, perhaps with zero-day exploits in the wild, and the service pack closes them? Should Microsoft allow their paying customers of their OS (if not their Office suite) to remain vulnerable just because they have an unactivated trial version?

[COMALiteJ]

In the specific case of Office 2007, in particular Access when running in .ADP (Access Data Projects, basically as a front-end to SQL Server) mode, the performance of the RTM pre-SP1 version was SO bad that it would very much drive many potential customers away from wanting the full version. I have personally seen Access 2007 RTM running by itself on a fast modern machine running about a HUNDRED TIMES SLOWER than Access 2003 on an older machine running at the same time as lots of other apps! We're talking here taking upwards of a MINUTE to ECHO A KEYSTROKE IN A TEXT ENTRY FIELD!
SP1 fixes this issue (actually, there was a hotfix that also fixed it, but SP1 incorporates that hotfix, and before people would have to know that the hotfix existed, and that the performance problem wasn't just because of the general slowness of .NET code over pure compiled unmanaged native processor code).

[COMALiteJ]

Is it REALLY to Microsoft's benefit to allow a trial version, intended to advertise it and entice people to buy it, to be so badly performing, and not allow it to be updated with the fix that would solve that problem and thus provide a better user experience that would make the people more likely to want to BUY it?