HelpWithWindows Newsletter

01. Microsoft: 2007 Microsoft Office System on track for October RTM

by Arie Slob

Hello Windows users,

At the end of March, Microsoft confirmed the timeline for release and availability of its 2007 Microsoft Office system. According to Microsoft they are on track to complete work on the new Office in October of this year and are planning to make the product available to business customers through the volume licensing program in October 2006. Retail and OEM availability of the product are scheduled to coincide with the retail and OEM availability of the Windows Vista operating system in January 2007.

Pricing

The U.S. estimated retail pricing (ERP) for the 2007 Microsoft Office system products is as follows:

2007 Microsoft Office Suites	Retail Price / Upgrade Price
Microsoft Office Professional 2007	$499/$329
Microsoft Office Small Business 2007	$449/$279
Microsoft Office Standard 2007	$399/$239
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007	$149/NA

2007 Microsoft Office Programs (Access, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word) have an ERP of $229/$109. Outlook 2007 carries an ERP of $109

Packaging

Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Includes: Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Access, Publisher and Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager.

Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 includes all of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 except Microsoft Office Access 2007. Microsoft Office Standard 2007 includes Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word, while Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 substitutes Outlook for OneNote compared to the Standard version.

More information can be found on the Microsoft Office Web site.

02. 03. Microsoft Offers Virtual Server 2005 R2 for Free

At the start of April, Microsoft announced that Virtual Server 2005 R2 will be available as a free download. At the same time Microsoft also announced the availability of virtual machine add-ins for Linux and a technical product support model for Linux guest operating systems running on Virtual Server 2005 R2.

When Microsoft first acquired the Connectix software on which it based its Virtual PC and Virtual Server products, it removed official support to run Linux virtual machines. After user complaints over time grew, Microsoft finally decided to add Linux support back to the product.

Microsoft has made the following virtual machine add-ins are available as a free download, supporting an initial set of nine Linux distributions:

Enterprise distributions: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 2.1 (update 6), RHEL 3 (update 6), RHEL 4 and Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9
Standard distributions: Red Hat Linux 7.3 / 9.0, Novell's SuSE Linux 9.2 / 9.3 and 10.0

You can Order or Download Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition from the Microsoft Windows Server System Web site, while the Virtual Machine Additions for Linux are available from Microsoft Connect (req. Microsoft Passport).

04. Microsoft Security

Microsoft Windows Security Bulletin Summary for April, 2006

The security update for April 2006 includes two fixes for Microsoft Windows, one fix each for Internet Explorer and Outlook Express.

Severity Rating: Critical

Severity Rating: Important

Cumulative Security Update for Outlook Express (911567)

05. Recent Support BBS Postings

Microsoft Global Survey for IT Professionals and Developers

Desktop icons won't stay where I put them - Windows XP
Broadband speed - General Internet
Microsoft Says Recovery from Malware Becoming Impossible - General Security
SATA Confusion, Info- research links needed - Hardware

06. Windows Desktop Search 2.6.5

Windows Desktop Search (WDS) helps you find virtually anything on your PC or your networked drives including e-mail messages, calendar appointments, documents, and more.

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 SP4; Windows Server 2003; Windows XP SP1/SP2

Download [4.19 MB - ENG]
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More Information

07. Recommend This Newsletter!

Do you enjoy reading this Newsletter? Why not tell your friend(s) about it?

Recommend this Newsletter!

08. Windows XP Security Guide

This guide provides detailed technical information for customers who are interested in hardening deployments of Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) on desktop and laptop client computers in different types of environments.

Requires Any version of Microsoft Word or Microsoft Word Viewer 2003.

Download [980 KB - ENG]

09. Troubleshooting Windows Explorer Errors

I get messages from people having problems with Windows Explorer crashes on a regular basis. Mostly they go something like this: "When I right-click a file in Windows Explorer, I get a message that Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close" or "When I try to browse through the folders on my computer, I receive an error message that Windows Explorer needs to close."

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10. Latest Microsoft & Windows News from around the Internet

Latest Microsoft & Windows News from around the Internet

11. Windows Defender Beta 2 Update

Microsoft has released an updated version of its free Windows Defender software, dated 4/12/2006. Windows Defender is a free program that helps you stay productive by protecting your computer against pop-ups, slow performance and security threats caused by spyware and other potentially unwanted software.

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 SP4; Windows Server 2003 SP1; Windows XP SP2

Download [5.49 MB - ENG]
Download x64 [7.54 MB - ENG]