Tag: vista

Office 2007 Service Pack 2 Released, Adds Performance, Open Document Support

April 28th, 2009 · Michael Struwig · Featured, Software One comment - Tags: , , , , ,

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Microsoft released an anticipated Service Pack 2 for its Office 2007 suite of office software. The update adds both performance improvements and long-awaited Open Document Format and PDF support.

The second service pack in Microsoft’s most popular software suite brings with it the much anticipated ODF (Open Document Format) Support that allows Word to open various files from the ODF range listed below (source: Wikipedia):

  • .odt for word processing (text) documents
  • .ods for spreadsheets
  • .odb for object-oriented database
  • .odp for presentations
  • .odg for graphics
  • .odf for formulae, mathematical equations

This format has been the default format used by Microsoft’s biggest open source (and free to all) competitor – OpenOffice.org. The additional support is sure to make OpenOffice.org users happy, who no longer need to manually save their documents to the .doc(x) format.

Other changes include PDF and XPS support as well as much-needed performance and stability improvements, with special mentions about Outlook and Excel.

Service Pack 2 should be available for download via Microsoft’s website. Alternatively, you could simply wait for the update to be pushed to Windows Update in the near future.

AppleInsider: Microsoft Extending Windows XP Downgrade To 2010

April 5th, 2009 · Michael Struwig · Featured, Software No comments - Tags: , , , , , ,

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According to a post by AppleInsider, Microsoft has reluctantly agreed to allow HP to give its customers a Windows XP downgrade option on new PCs until April 30 2010.

The announcement hasn’t been made publicly, but AppleInsider can exclusively report that according to a source within Hewlett Packard, Microsoft has granted the PC giant an extension to its existing rights to continue selling the nearly eight year old Windows XP on the company’s business desktops, workstations, and notebooks in place of Windows 7 for another year.

says the AppleInsider report.

You can access the little snippet here.

This is a surprising blow to Windows 7, as Microsoft seemed to be getting good feedback and general community excitement regarding the new release. After all, Windows 7 is simply a Vista fix-up (albeit what is turning out to be an extremely good one), even according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer,

“Windows 7 is Windows Vista with cleanup in user interface [and] improvements in performance.”

Be sure to not however that just because Microsoft is extending the downgrade option, free support for Windows XP still expires on April 14 2009.