Microsoft Office System 2003 Beta 2 TR
Today, my free Office trial finally expired.
I first acquired it as a Kit from Microsoft in June or so of last year. It cost me all of twenty bucks to get Office Pro, complete with Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Binder, and Image Manager, as well as other utilitarian programs common to all Office and program distributions. In addition, I got FrontPage, OneNote, and Publisher, which are now sold seperately. Furthermore, I got a 360 day trial version of Windows Server Enterprise 2003 (which none of my computers are powerful enough to run) and the entire SharePoint Services suite to go with it. The listed expiry date for all of this was November 30th. The only difference to normal users of the programs was a sleeker style, and even that was somewhat incomplete, but the fact that I was getting the works (I was stuck with only Word 4.0 for most of my life, and doing pretty much anything was impossible...) made me elated. So elated, in fact, that I didn't use the new portions of the software at all.
Around about mid-October, a few weeks before the big launch debut, I checked for updates to the beta. Lo and behold, they offered the "Technical Refresh" which basically updated the graphics to full completeness and extended the trial to January 31. In addition, it gave me Visio, the enterprise diagramming software. I felt sure that using the UML capabilities, I could astound and amaze my CS class, but I never got around to it. At least it installed a nifty link in Visual Studo 2002 to reverse-engineer a project into a UML Static Structure diagram.
So, today, January 31, at noon, the programs dropped like flies. "New" doesn't work. "Open" only works once in a blue moon. "Save" doesn't work. "Print" works in Outlook only. About the only functionality (except in Outlook) is the Help menu and the Exit button. Outlook is pretty decent in what it lets you do: It carefully saves e-mails and lets you view them and manipulate them any way you want, even print them. The only thing it prohibits basically is creating any new item, derived or not. But other than that, these programs are walking ghosts.
So goodbye, Office 2003 Enterprise. We had some amazing times together, but you cannot stay in this world any longer. Your designer styling and somewhat upgraded functionality were music to my ears, but the music is now a funeral dirge. If I could I would turn the clock back, but the penalty for doing so is death itself. May the many relics I have collected of your presence last evermore, as I try to make due with the left toe of your ancient great great great great great grandmother, Word 4.0.
Well, actually, I've already got around half the stuff using real money that the beta had, but that wouldn't sound good in this eulogy...
I first acquired it as a Kit from Microsoft in June or so of last year. It cost me all of twenty bucks to get Office Pro, complete with Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Binder, and Image Manager, as well as other utilitarian programs common to all Office and program distributions. In addition, I got FrontPage, OneNote, and Publisher, which are now sold seperately. Furthermore, I got a 360 day trial version of Windows Server Enterprise 2003 (which none of my computers are powerful enough to run) and the entire SharePoint Services suite to go with it. The listed expiry date for all of this was November 30th. The only difference to normal users of the programs was a sleeker style, and even that was somewhat incomplete, but the fact that I was getting the works (I was stuck with only Word 4.0 for most of my life, and doing pretty much anything was impossible...) made me elated. So elated, in fact, that I didn't use the new portions of the software at all.
Around about mid-October, a few weeks before the big launch debut, I checked for updates to the beta. Lo and behold, they offered the "Technical Refresh" which basically updated the graphics to full completeness and extended the trial to January 31. In addition, it gave me Visio, the enterprise diagramming software. I felt sure that using the UML capabilities, I could astound and amaze my CS class, but I never got around to it. At least it installed a nifty link in Visual Studo 2002 to reverse-engineer a project into a UML Static Structure diagram.
So, today, January 31, at noon, the programs dropped like flies. "New" doesn't work. "Open" only works once in a blue moon. "Save" doesn't work. "Print" works in Outlook only. About the only functionality (except in Outlook) is the Help menu and the Exit button. Outlook is pretty decent in what it lets you do: It carefully saves e-mails and lets you view them and manipulate them any way you want, even print them. The only thing it prohibits basically is creating any new item, derived or not. But other than that, these programs are walking ghosts.
So goodbye, Office 2003 Enterprise. We had some amazing times together, but you cannot stay in this world any longer. Your designer styling and somewhat upgraded functionality were music to my ears, but the music is now a funeral dirge. If I could I would turn the clock back, but the penalty for doing so is death itself. May the many relics I have collected of your presence last evermore, as I try to make due with the left toe of your ancient great great great great great grandmother, Word 4.0.
Well, actually, I've already got around half the stuff using real money that the beta had, but that wouldn't sound good in this eulogy...