Swiss IT Professional and TechNet Blog : Office System

Microsoft Office Genuine Advantage Notifier

mepprecht — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:00:00 GMT

For Switzerland, Office Genuine Advantage has arrived..

Office Genuine Advantage Notifier is a program that Microsoft uses to combat software piracy and help you check whether your Microsoft Office version is original software and properly licensed.

From 25. August 2009 can download OGA Notifier from Microsoft Update.

If you are not using original software the notification tool will periodically remind you, so that you can take appropriate action.

The OGA website helps you to activate your product and to take measures so that your software passes validation. If the Authenticity check fails, your can license the product easily using the OGA Legalization Kit. This consists of original disk and product key. If you need help, you will be redirected to your local retailer or Microsoft support services.

More more information about Microsoft Office Original Software.

Microsoft Connection Days

mepprecht — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:46:55 GMT

At five locations in Switzerland from 28 September up to 8. October 2009, Microsoft Connection Days (ex Partner Days), an event for Partners and IT professionals will be held.

This year, Microsoft Partners and now IT Professionals will have the opportunity, under one roof, to network and make interesting contacts. Five IT professional topics will be available for you to obtain the latest information about cloud computing (key note), Windows 7, Office/Exchange 2010, Windows Server R2 and Hyper-V R2, SQL Server and Online Services (BPOS).

Microsoft Office 2010 – The Movie

mepprecht — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:15:25 GMT

The countdown has started…..Go and check this website http://www.office2010themovie.com/

Office 2010 – Dont use the leaks

mepprecht — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:26:31 GMT

Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview should be available in July 2009 (we are still working on it). But, there are some non-official copies that are already floating around on the Torrents.

Quite a few are infected with malware. The same thing happened to unofficial Windows 7 copies, resulting in a Botnet of compromised machines.

If you did not download Microsoft software directly from Microsoft, then don’t use it, you don’t know who did what to it. If you install those unofficial copies from untrusted sources, you are exposing yourself and your data and your network.

Office 2010 Blog

Office 2007 Service Pack 2 is available

mepprecht — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:47:26 GMT

Today we shipped Service Pack 2 for:

Microsoft Office 2007
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Highlights include:

The ability to open, edit and save documents in version 1.1 of the OpenDocument Format for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. These applications now let users save, open, and edit files as OpenDocument Text (*.odt), OpenDocument Spreadsheet (*.ods), and OpenDocument Presentations (*.odp).
Save As PDF or XPS add-in has been built into Office applications. Users no longer have to download and install the add-in separately.
SharePoint offers support for a broader range of Web browsers.

For a list of the other 50 or so improvements and also the bugs that were fixed, visit the Office Sustained Engineering Blog, KB 953195 (Office Client), KB 953334 (Office Server) und KB 953338 (Windows SharePoint Server)

The Service Packs can be downloaded from here

Support of Outlook 2003 on BPOS

mepprecht — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:41:40 GMT

We have been getting a few questions from Customers and Partners about BPOS. One of the questions is "Will BPOS support Outlook 2003?".

It is expected that from June 2009, Outlook 2003 will be supported, but there are clear limitations. See this extract from a MS Field Blog:

Outlook 2003 WILL BE supported in Exchange Online Standard by June 2009. However, there are two very critical caveats:

No Free-Busy: While Exchange Online Standard will support Outlook 2003, the Free-Busy functionality in Outlook 2003 will be completely disabled when connected to Exchange Online. In other words, there will be NO Free-Busy support or capability in Outlook 2003 when used with Exchange Online. We are investigating possible mitigations for this issue, but we cannot commit a date for Free-Busy support in Outlook 2003 when used with Exchange Online.

Possible Workaround: Free-Busy WILL work in OWA. So an end-user could switch to OWA to schedule a meeting when they need to see Free-Busy info for another Online user (note that Exchange Online still will NOT expose Free-Busy information in a co-existence scenario to on-premises users -- this limitation still exists and will not be fixed until Wave 14 - see F/B Coexist Topic)

Outlook 2003 Not Supported By Exchange Online 2010 Version (Wave 14): Be aware that Outlook 2003 support for Exchange Online will end at Wave 14 when Exchange Online moves onto Exchange Server 2010.

Possible Mitigation: Customers have 12 months to opt into platform upgrade of BPOS. So a customer who is on BPOS Standard who needs Outlook 2003 support could have it for up to 12 months after Wave 14 platform upgrade if customer chooses to stay on the current platform. But it does mean they will not get the benefits of Wave 14 capabilities. So customer will have to weigh Outlook 2003 support against Wave 14 benefits.

We will provide more information about exactly what this support will look like shortly. (I.e. will the Sign-In Tool configure Outlook 2003 as it does Outlook 2007, etc.)

Refer to Outlook 2003 WIKI Topic page for subsequent updates.

UPDATE: A third caveat to consider - just added this to the WIKI topic: Outlook 2003 Mainstream Support Ended 4/14/2009: Be aware that mainstream support ended for Outlook 2003 on 4/14/2009. So Outlook 2003 is now in Extended Support phase. Customers currently running Outlook 2003 should be reminded of this when considering to stay with Outlook 2003 versus moving to Office 2007.

Original post from Schweizer IT Professional und TechNet Blog by Stefan Hagenbuch.

Windows XP and Office 2003 Enters Extended Support Today

mepprecht — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:05:06 GMT

Today was D-Day for Windows XP and Office 2003. Both products moved from Mainstream Support phase to Extended Support phase.

Extended Supports entails:

Paid support
Security update support at no additional cost
Non-security related hotfix support requires a separate Extended Hotfix Support Agreement to be purchased (per-fix fees also apply

Support for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 also ended today. If you have not upgraded to Service Pack 2 for Windows 2003, then you are totally unsupported.

All editions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 will transition from the Mainstream Support phase to the Extended Support phase on July 13, 2010.

For a complete breakdown of the support phases, see the Support Lifecycle Page