Answer:

On December 8th, Microsoft has made available the Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 1 (SP1. The service pack offers bug fixes and security updates for pretty much all Office products (Excel, Word, Outlook etc’).

There are two options to download Office 2007 service pack 1:

• As a critical update via Windows Update (Start >> Windows Update)
• Directly at the following url.

The service pack is supported on Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Vista and Windows XP Service Pack 2. So if you run one of those operating systems, i would recommend that you download Office 2007 service pack 1 and upgrade your system at your earliest convenience.

I have received a docx file from a colleague. Can you provide some guidance on how to open docx files, as i don’t seem to be able to open the file my colleague sent by using Microsoft Office Word 2003 nor 2002.

Answer:

Docx is the file extension of Microsoft Word 2007 documents. Does it mean that you can only open docx files with Office 2007? Not really.
Microsoft has made available the Office Compatibility pack, which enables you not only to open but also to edit Microsoft Office files (docx, xslx, pptx) using previous Office versions (2000 and above) and viewers.

In case that you don’t have rights to install new software in your PC, or if using a public computer that doesn’t run Microsoft office, you might want to look into Zamzar.com, an easy-to-use web based file conversion service, that will allow you to open docx files.

Got tech support questions? Send them through my contact form and have them answered!

 Last week I decided to use Outlook 2007 as my one stop shop for all my communication and get rid of all the other email clients. My first step was to leverage the slick Outlook connector in order to read my Hotmail account from Outlook. Yesterday was the newsgroup reader turn.

I leveraged a simple Microsoft how to  in order to configure Outlook to read newsgroups. Note that you’ll need Outlook Express, Windows Mail (if you run Vista) or Windows Live Mail installed on your computer, as Outlook 2007 doesn’t ship with NNTP (a protocol used in order to read newsgroups) software.

Enjoy!

You can easily avoid those situation by password protecting your spreadsheets. As almost everything related to Office 2007, password protecting is easy but very different than in previous versions.

Here is the quick process:

1. Create your Excel 2007 spreadsheet.
2. Click the Microsoft Office Icon.
3. Click Save As and pick Excel Workbook.
4. Click the Tools button (in the lower left side of the Save as prompt).
5. Click General Options.
6. Set a password to open and modify your spreadsheet.
7. Click OK and reenter your password.

Note: If you lose or forget your password you won’t be able to recover it. Make sure that you keep the password in a safe place.

A similar procedure applies to other Office 2007 documents such as PowerPoint presentations and  Word documents.

The good news is that Microsoft has just released the Outlook Connector, which allows you to easily access your Hotmail or Windows Live mail account from your Outlook 2002, 2003 or 2007. The Outlook Connector has two main benefits: (1) It allows you to turn Outlook into your single email client for all Microsoft mail services and (2) it allows you to leverage the Outlook robust and familiar interface in order to manage your Hotmail or Windows Live Mail correspondence. Outlook connector is easy to install and intuitive to configure. It runs on Windows  XP and Vista, and so far works satisfactorily.

Outlook connector (3.8 MB) can be download from Microsoft (requires a genuine OS).

The solution for that is quite incredibly simple. If you are an Office 2003 and below user, go ahead and install the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack.

After installing the pack, you’ll be able to open, edit and save any Word, Excel or Powerpoint 2007 document. Please note that the Compatibility pack works with the different Office viewers available in the market as well.

Enjoy!

[tags] Microsoft , Microsoft Office 2007, Windows tips, Microsoft Excel, Office 2007, Word [/tags]

As a follow up, i would like to introduce you to a Microsoft utility named Personal Folders Backup , that’s aimed to help you backup the Personal folders themselves.

The Personal Folders Backup download creates backup copies of your .PST files at regular intervals, in Outlook 2002 and later versions, making it easy to keep all of your Outlook folders safely backed up.

Installation is quite simple:

• Go to the Personal Folders Backup download page.
• Download the pfbackup.exe file and run it.
• After Installation completes, open your Outlook.
• Click File, the click Backup.

• In case you have multiple Personal Folders, you can use the Options button, to select which of the Folders to backup.
• Use the File Location in order to specify the location of your backup file.

• Click OK.
• Click Save Backup.

Important Tip for Office 2007 users:

I have encountered situations in which after installing the utility, the Backup option, didn’t show up under the File menu in Outlook. This is due to issues in the registration of the utility as an add-in in Outllok 2007.

In order to make the utility work, proceed as following:

[tags] Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows tips, Microsoft Outlook, Office 2007, Outlook, Personal Folders[/tags]

Here’s how you do it in Outlook 2007:

• Create a new message
• Click Message and then Delay Delivery
• Check the Do not deliver before checkbox and specify a date and time

• Click OK

and in other Outlook versions:

• Create a new message
• Click the Options button
• Check the Do not deliver before checkbox and specify a date and time
• Click OK

[tags] Outlook 2007, Outlook [/tags]

• Go to Start || Settings || Control panel
• Click Sounds and Audio Devices
• Open the Sounds tab and in the Program Events highlight New Mail Notification
• Use the Browse button to select your sound of choice

TIP: Note that in addition to the sounds provided by Windows, you can upload additional sound files (in *.wav format) to C:\Windows\Media (or other folder in Windows) and then select them as your mail notification sound.



• Click OK

[tags] Windows, Outlook, Outllok Notification, PC Hacks [/tags]

]]> http://www.avirtualexit.com/2007/04/21/how-to-change-the-new-mail-notification-sound-in-outlook/feed/ 1 http://www.avirtualexit.com/2007/04/18/how-to-backup-outlook-emails/ http://www.avirtualexit.com/2007/04/18/how-to-backup-outlook-emails/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:30:21 +0000 Gili http://www.avirtualexit.com/2007/04/18/how-to-backup-outlook-emails/ Many of us rely on Microsoft Outlook for managing our email correspondence. Email content is usually invaluable and thus we better make sure we periodically back it up and store it in a safe location.
Here’s a quick how-to that will help you backup your Outlook e-mails. This information is applicable to all full Outlook versions (not to Outlook Express).


1. Click File || Import and Export.

2. Select Export to a file and then click Next.





3. Choose Personal Folders file (.PST) as your backup file type. *.PST are the easiest to restore.

4. Select the folder you would like to export your emails from. Click the include sub-folders, if you want to export nested sub-folders within your selected folder.

TIP: Use the Filter button in case you would like to filter what items to backup based on different criteria like: To, From, Importance etc’.




5. Using the Browse button, specify the location of your *.PST file.

6. Specify how to deal with duplicate posts.

7. Click Finish.

8. Make sure the *.PST file is stored in a secure location. CD/DVDs, local hard drives, network drives make a good choice to backup your *.PST file.

Stay tuned for more on backup of other Outlook objects such as tasks, calendar meetings, contacts and notes.

[tags] Outlook, Outlook Backup, Windows, Office [/tags]

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