Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003 Upgrade Description:

Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003 Upgrade review:
1 stars (Don't even think about upgrading) - You need to get out more. Just the fact that you are looking at this page and are thinking of upgrading your Microsoft Office makes it clear that you have a problem. Don't believe the Microsoft advertisement featuring dinosaurs to announce "Microsoft Office Has Evolved." It hasn't. This is a mature product. It doesn't matter if you use Office 1997, 2000 or 2003. They are all the same. The good, the bad and the ugly. It is all still here. Maybe a few bugs have been fixed. Most haven't, and ther are always new bugs. If Microsoft took the time to really improve the software, that would be one thing. But they don't.



Here is an example. You are in Outlook. You call up a contact and want to send that person a letter. You need to print an envelope, but there is no command to do so. There is no button to click. You can't right click anywhere to print an envelope. I am not making this up. Outlook has been out for almost ten years and multiple upgrades, and Microsoft still hasn't gotten around to implementing functionality to print a single envelope. Your only option (the on-line support confirms this) is to perform a mail merge. This is an elaborate process that is designed for printing thousands of envelopes for a bulk mailing. It involves opening multiple windows and setting all sorts of settings. You have to go through the ENTIRE PROCESS just to print a single envelope! What is more, the mail merge feature has bugs in it. It leaves blank lines in addresses that look atrocious, and it drops country names from addresses. It gives you options as to how you want country names treaed in addresses, but these all do nothing. Whatever option you select, Outlook leaves countries out of addresses when it prints envelopes.



I could go on, but I won't. If you are using Office 2000 or even Office 1997, you aren't missing out on anything. There is absolutely no reason to shell out $400 for new software that does all the same things in all the same ways with mostly the same bugs.
2 stars (Like Bugs? If Yes, Then Buy This!) - I am writing with reference to Office 2003 Standard in both Upgrade and Full (non upgrade) versions. The upgrade CD would not accept the 25 alpha numeric `product ID' key. It would take 4 characters then jump to the next box. It would not allow you to return to the previous box and back fill the missing letter or number. In short, you could not ever enter the correct product ID. I can't say more about this version as I could not get past this point.The Full (non upgrade) version seemed more stable. It accepted the `product ID' key at least but that is where the problems began. The first problem I had was that in PowerPoint there was no preview. Sure enough, less than 30 days out and there was a critical upgrade to fix this problem. I went to the Microsoft Update page to download it. It failed several times. I then contacted Microsoft Technical support. This is a known problem and you must download (at least for now) all updated to your local hard drive and install from there. If they don't solve this problem, its going to be a major problem when there are more than a few updates for Office 2003 available.I also started to receive `run time error messages' when I used Microsoft Internet Explorer. Microsoft technical support says this is not an Office 2003 issue, but an Operating System issue. Sure it is! I did not have this problem before I installed Office 2003. The resolution was to disable all Third Party devices (such as the Google tool bar), and remove some other things as well. The new Outlook interface looks great, but what good is a great looking interface if it does not work?For some reason, email sent using Outlook 2003 is identified as `Spam' by several spam filtering programs, including Spam Assassin. I found this out when some people I was sending email to did not reply. I telephoned one of them and said they had not received any email form me. They then checked and found it in the `spam' folder. Here is the error message that Outlook 2003 generated:> Content analysis details: (5.70 points, 5 required)> FORGED_YAHOO_RCVD (2.7 points) 'From' yahoo.com does not match 'Received'> headers> MSG_ID_ADDED_BY_MTA_2 (0.8 points) 'Message-Id' was added by a relay > (2) FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK (2.2 points) Forged mail pretending to be from > MS Outlook MISSING_OUTLOOK_NAME (0.0 points) Message looks like > Outlook, but isn'tThis is also a known problem to Microsoft Technical Support. The fix is to turn off all firewall and virus protection and to remove some networking package updates. I tried this but it still did not solve the problem. It remains unresolved. I had more problems but I think this illustrates the point that this product was just released to soon. If you enjoy `bleeding edge' technology, this is for you. If you are looking for something that works without `bleeding edge' features (bugs or problems) then take to heart the advice I was given by Microsoft Technical Support; ". . . I usually wait 6 months after a release before I upgrade. By then most of the major problems have been resolved."Sage Advice!As for me, I am returning to an earlier edition of Office at least for a while.Here is the phone number for Microsoft Technical Support. If you buy this product right now, you are going to need it: 1-888-346-5229Good Luck, your going to need it!
5 stars (Essential tools with powerful enhancements!) - Word 2003 includes development tools that add dynamic features to documents making them powerful than ever. The power beneath all this is XML, allowing the user to embed components for updating data in documents such as stock quotes. Word 2003 offers simple, familiar yet improved features regular users are accustomed to. Majority of the features in Word 2003 are aimed primarily toward businesses and the Enterprise. But are still necessary for the average user because of the control over information across all the Office applications. Tools such as Information Rights Management (IRM), (this controls the flow of information to specific users), persons can be restricted on how they use your Office files; whether it's printing or sharing, very powerful! Reading view is an enhanced mode of print preview; documents are laid out in virtual pages reducing the need to print. The Task Pane is also improved by offering resources to look up information on a particular topic being typed; this is a feature across the core Office applications. Lots of other great features make Word 2003 a worthy upgrade.Excel is a XML mammoth because of the integration with the language. The ability to migrate data between different storage sources and extraction of information to make it flexible in different scenarios. Tables can be transferred back and forth between applications such Word with ease. Excel can continually use the tables from documents as a data source for further expandability. It's the flexibility for data exchange that makes Excel 2003 very powerful. Outlook, is so revamped, this alone is a worthy upgrade. Three panes in Outlook 2003 make e-mail an enjoyable experience. The Mail Pane holds all of the necessary tools found in prior versions of Outlook such as the Outlook Bar, and the different folders such as inbox, calendar, etc. The second pane gives an expanded view of the different items listed in the Mail Pane, like your incoming mail, contacts and calendar, which makes reading these information resources easier on the eye and productive by providing a better view. Reading your e-mail in the third pane (Preview Pane), the user views the message in portrait layout, more content is seen compared to prior versions. Its even better to view e-mails with "Clear Type" turned on for Windows XP users. Other features such as improved Virus and Spam protection makes Outlook 2003 a great upgrade. Outlook is not placed on the desktop by default, it can also be minimized to the system tray in Windows, for users connected to an Exchange Server, this displays all the network settings available.PowerPoint 2003 offers the same features of version 2002, but what makes it an enticing upgrade is the package to CD feature that allows users to save presentations onto CD-ROMS. The PowerPoint Viewer included with each Package to CD allows it to be played on other computer systems even if PowerPoint is not installed. Windows media integration is also in PowerPoint 2003, which makes watching presentations more fun and exciting. The effects are fantastic when combined with these elements. The ability to integrate videos into Presentations to create home movies has long been a request of users, even if they have a DVD burner. For the PowerPoint 2000 user this is a worthy upgrade that provides simple yet Powerful tools to take presentation graphics to a new level.