[senit] vista

)

If you open files from Office 2007 in earlier versions you're prompted to 
download a plug in - it's very straightforward if it's you're own computer 
and you have full administrator rights  - a bit of a pain if you're on the 
network and you don't.

We're currently still buying new machines (from Dell) with XP installed as 
standard, but we're finding it more difficult to do so and have a couple of 
lap tops with Vista - we've had to scratch around for printer drivers on one 
occasion (A visiting consultant who strangely had brought his own lap top 
and printer, and had upgraded the operating system, but not installed a 
printer driver - we managed to patch it from the printer manufacturer's 
website).

The file issue has only come to light with staff bringing in files from 
home, and hasn't caused too many hiccups.

Our ICT team are finding Vista more stable than XP, and are getting to like 
it - it may perhaps be more stable because fewer people have used and abused 
it yet (a bit like Apples !)

I've yet to grapple with the newer Office package, but was put off by my 
experiences with Media Player 11 and Internet Explorer 7. It seems 
Microsoft's approach is to turn off the visibility of tools that they 
perceive as not being regularly used, and turn on the maximum amount of 
security, failsafe and keeping of history and updating by default. Which 
tends to make things frustrating for the more seasoned user.

My response with Media Player was to persevere and tweak it to what I 
wanted - and I'd say it's much better than any previous version  - even 
though I've turned off most of the bells and whistles. My response to IE 7 
was to download Firefox, and I now hardly ever use IE.

So I'm not sure where that will leave me with Office 97 and Vista - my guess 
is that all of the annoying features will be turn off-able if you know how.

I wonder if they've fixed the bug with the bulleted lists and the different 
fonts yet ? Surely the longest running software gripe in history !

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Banes" <david.banes at abilitynet.org.uk>
To: <aph at misnet.co.uk>; <senit at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 10:44 PM
Subject: RE: [senit] vista

To start with we have been saving files in 2003 format but yes people
tend to forget

Our elearning course on Vista includes material on office 2007 and its
proven popular along with the day courses on the two that we have been
running

There are a lot of features in 2007 that people will one day love - but
the fact that the ribbon is so different to out experience is going to
cause some problems for some time

I recommend working through the tutorials and demos from MS steadily
they do help the transition process

David Banes
Director of Development
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-----Original Message-----
From: senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Alex Hammerstein
Sent: 01 December 2007 20:45
To: senit at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [senit] vista

Judith

With one of my other hats on, yes to your question re Office 2007.  In
fact
we run a part time distance learning course for the University of
Plymouth,
with over 1000 students enrolled, and based around explaining how to use
MS
office.  I have just rewritten the whole course to accommodate Office
2007
:)

There is a plug-in that you can download from the MS Site that will
automatically convert a 2007 word document to Word 2003, when opened in
2003

Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Judith Stansfield
Sent: 01 December 2007 19:37
To: senit at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [senit] vista

I have just been involved with the opening of a new Learning Centre
attached to a village hall and funded by Lottery and European funding -
designed to support adults who want learn in their own community - it is
equipped with laptops and desktops that came with Vista, but as most of
our clients are using XP or an earlier OS, we got licences to run XP
with the idea of re-installing Vista later when it is more widespread.
We also got Office 2007 which is TOTALLY different from earlier
versions, so as all the WEA teaching materials for CLAIT and ECDL are
geared to Office 2003, we have also (temporarily I hope) downgraded to
Office 03.  Is anyone using the new Office? It has an Apple Mac feel
about it and I am sure will be great in the long run, but the
icons/menus are not totally intuitive and it can be quite hard to find
things - I had prepared a powerpoint on my own machine and when I needed
to change the timings of the presentation in the new Office, it took
ages to find!  We also found it is essential to save as an older version
or rtf file if you want to transfer work between Office 07 and earlier
versions of Word etc - I can see this is going to cause chaos for people
who circulate info to a lot of people using different versions!
Cheers
Judith
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Judith Stansfield
Farm Cottage, 24 East Road, Melsonby,Richmond DL10 5NF
http://stass.web.onyxnet.co.uk
01325 718139   07990572365
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of David Banes
Sent: 30 November 2007 21:51
To: aph at misnet.co.uk; senit at lists.becta.org.uk; Mandy Griffin
Subject: RE: [senit] vista

The choice of when to move to a new operating system is always a major
one - where one has complete control over the timing of investment,
waiting may be a reasonable stance. However where one is involved in
major initiatives such as BSF, a decision about an earlier rollout of
the new OS may be necessary. Vista offers a number of opportunities to
people with a disability including speech recognition, ease of access
centre and video training material and demonstrations. As well as
frustrations with compatibility.

If you are currently investing in new systems for school or local
authority, you are investing for the next 3 years - and hence are likely
to want systems with Vista on now, rather than need to upgrade the new
hardware with a new OS in 6-12 months - that is why it is important to
do a gap analysis on the applications you are currently running and
determine whether they will run from day 1 on Vista, not run at all or
run with a series of patches or fixes - but remember these are dependent
on the developer of the solution not Microsoft.

Understanding this last point is important - Creative Labs decided not
to issue drivers for many of its webcams instead a search for a driver
told you to buy a new webcam ! That was a commercial decision by
Creative for good or for bad

There are many issues to consider when implementing a new OS and the
features we want in schools, networking, security, speed are important -
application compatibility is equally important and Id be interested to
know what people are finding works and doesn't work on Vista - Id only
say that the argument is painfully circular

Customers - "We wont buy Vista till my fave software is upgraded to run
with it"

Developer - "We wont invest in writing upgrades until there are enough
Vista users out there wanting them"

The result, sadly, is always longer waiting periods for us all to get
the benefits of the new OS and the reliability of our old software

David Banes
Director of Development

________________________________

Tel: +44 (0)1908 314 736

Mob: +44 (0)7989 409287

Web: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk

Fax:  +44 (0)870 160 6824

AbilityNet
P.O. Box 94, Birmingham Road, Warwick, Warwickshire CV34 5WS

________________________________

Registered Charity No. 1067673 Company Limited by guarantee registered
in England and Wales No. 3469653 Registered office: Acre House, 11/15
William Road, London NW1 3ER.  VAT No. 380597914

WARNING:  AbilityNet has taken reasonable precautions to ensure no
viruses are present in this email, but cannot, however, accept
responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of this email
or attachments.  You are strongly recommended to carry out your own
virus checks.

-----Original Message-----
From: senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Alex Hammerstein
Sent: 30 November 2007 20:13
To: 'Mandy Griffin'; senit at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [senit] vista

Excellent Policy - Vista is current Completely Redundant Application
Programming .  My understanding is that SP1 is January 2008, which is
where they should have been on Release, so I personally, would wait for
SP2 due June 2008

Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senit-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Mandy Griffin
Sent: 30 November 2007 19:55
To: senit at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: Re: [senit] vista

I personally wouldn't touch Vista (or any new operating system) until
at least the first service pack has been released. Mr Gates has a
wonderful policy of testing his new software on the public.

Our county policy in schools is no vista yet.

Mandy

----Original Message----
From: davidfettes3 at yahoo.co.uk
Date: 30/11/2007 16:02
To: <senit at lists.becta.org.uk>
Subj: [senit] vista

hi does most software you would find in an SLD school
work on windows vista? anything popular that doesn't?
david

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Southview School
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