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Remember: October 31 is Halloween, and the Office 2010 beta expires, too

As noted on the Office.com official blog, the Office 2010 beta expires Sunday, Oct 31, which means it’s time to upgrade to the full version or roll back to a previous version you have licensed…

Didn’t it seem like only yesterday when we made the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta available? Actually, it’s been nearly a year! Since then, Office 2010 has experienced over 9 million downloads — more than 6 times the size of the Office 2007 Beta.

With so many folks out there using the Office 2010 Beta, this is our gentle reminder that the Beta is set to expire on Halloween. For those of you who live outside of North America, that’s Sunday, October 31, 2010.

If you’ve been busy putting all of the new programs through their paces, you’ve already experienced many of the cool new features that can make your life easier. Personally, I’ve decided that I can no longer live without the Ignore Conversation button in Outlook 2010, linked notes in OneNote 2010, photo editing in Word 2010, using video in my PowerPoint 2010 presentations, or making walls of numbers come alive with Sparklines in Excel 2010. You get the picture.

If you’re currently using the expiring Beta, you  can simply uninstall.  More on uninstalling is available here.

For more info, see this FAQ from the Microsoft Support team, with Common Questions (and Answers!) about the Expiration of Office 2010 Beta.

Try Microsoft Office 2010

 

 

 

Tags: Microsoft, how to, customer support, Microsoft Product List 2010, feedback, customer service, Learning Essentials, Microsoft Office.

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Public Beta Now Available for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1

In case you missed Brandon’s post yesterday, the public beta is now available for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1…

Today, we announced at our annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) the availability of the public beta for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1). As Gavriella Schuster and I have mentioned in previous blogs, SP1 for Windows 7 does not contain any new features specific to Windows 7. However, the new features in SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 benefit Windows 7 by providing a richer Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) experience. For Windows 7, SP1 is simply a combination of updates already available through Windows Update and additional hotfixes based on feedback by our customers and partners. For more information on Windows 7 SP1 and new features for Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, I recommend reading this blog post from the Windows Server Division Weblog.

If you are an IT Professional interested in testing Windows 7 SP1, you can download the public beta via the Springboard Series on TechNet where you will find the download as well as other key deployment and support tools. For everyone else, Windows 7 SP1 will be available in the first half of 2011 through the usual channels.

Tags: Microsoft, articles, blogs, Microsoft, Windows 7

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, Windows 7, computers, how-to

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Reminder: Windows 7 RC Expires on June 1, 2010

A reminder that the Windows 7 release candidate (RC) will expire soon.

Beginning February 15, users of Windows 7 RC will begin seeing notifications on your computers, with warnings that the OS on the PC will soon expire.

Starting on March 1, 2010 your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Your work will not be saved during the shutdown.

The Windows 7 RC will fully expire on June 1, 2010. Any PC running the Windows 7 RC will shut down every two hours and files won’t be saved during shutdown. As noted on the site…

"In addition, your wallpaper will change to a solid black background with a persistent message on your desktop. You’ll also get periodic notifications that Windows isn’t genuine. That means your PC may no longer be able to obtain optional updates or downloads requiring genuine Windows validation.

"To avoid interruption, please reinstall a prior version of Windows or move to Windows 7. In either case, you’ll need to do a custom (clean) install to replace the RC. As with any clean installation, you’ll need to back up your data then reinstall your applications and restore the data."

 

Tags: articles, blogs, Windows 7, Windows 7 RC, Win7, Win7 RC.

Clubhouse Tags: Challenge-Windows 7, how-to, Windows 7.

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Windows Mobile My Phone (no, it’s not “MyPhone”) beta site debuts. Sign up soon available soon?

I just saw that the new Microsoft Windows Mobile "My Phone" site (or is it myPhone? 😉 went live…

My Phone"Coming soon… Microsoft My Phone syncs information between your mobile phone and the web, enabling you to:

  • Back up and restore your phone’s information to a password-protected web site
  • Access and update your contacts and appointments through your web account
  • Share photos on your phone with family and friends"

You can find out more here, but no word yet that I’ve seen publicly on when you can register for the beta.

Should be interesting.  With 200 MB of free storage available on the Microsoft My Phone web site, I wonder if you’ll be able to tap into LiveMesh and online storage via SkyDrive. If a phone synchronization results in exceeding the My Phone limit, it would be handy to enable "overdraft protection" on SkyDrive.

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Your questions: I can’t find Form Fill in Live Toolbar beta. Where can I find it?

Thanks to Bethany for her question sent via email

"I just installed the Live Toolbar beta and now I can’t find Form Fill.  Do you know where I can find it?"

Well, short answer is you can’t: the Form Fill and Windows Live Favorites add-ins aren’t available on Windows Live Toolbar beta.  This from the Help documentation:

"When you upgraded Toolbar beta, your Form Fill and Windows Live Favorites add-in settings were preserved on your local computer. To use these features, you must uninstall all of your Windows Live beta downloads and reinstall your previous version."

To the Live team: a great beta product but It would be nice if you were informed prior to installing the beta. Maybe you included the notice, but I missed that reference.

How do you get it back? Sadly (for now), the advice is to go back to the release version…

To uninstall Windows Live Toolbar beta:

  1. In Windows XP, click Start, and then click Run.

    –or–

    In Windows Vista, click the Start button, and then click in the Start Search box.

  2. Type appwiz.cpl, and then press ENTER.
  3. Click Windows Live Beta (all programs), and then click Remove or Uninstall/Change.
  4. Click Change, and then click Continue.
  5. Under You haven’t installed these yet, clear all of the check boxes.
  6. Under You installed these earlier, clear all of the check boxes, and then click Continue.
  7. Follow the on-screen instructions

To install the previous version of Toolbar beta:

  1. Go to the Windows Live website, and then click Get it free.
  2. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Tags: Microsoft, Your questions, Windows Live.

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