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Microsoft Businesses Apple

MS Office v.X Gets Service Release 74

Posted by pudge from the office-software-for-the-home dept.
techwolf writes "Microsoft put out a patch to Office v.X that touts more than 1000 performance improvements. In other words, 1000 ways they could have written the code better the first time."
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MS Office v.X Gets Service Release More

MS Office v.X Gets Service Release

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  • A Little Unfair (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @01:20PM (#3632632) Journal
    In other words, 1000 ways they could have written the code better the first time.

    Come on, this is totally unfair. Office v.X is widely considered to be a better office suite than its Windows counterpart (it really is excellent work), there's no forced registration with Microsoft, and without an office suite, OS X would have had very, very little going for it for a long time. It was rushed out the door so Microsoft could showcase the new Office X for OS X, show that it wasn't a monopoly by providing products and compatibility across platforms, and to help launch OS X.

    That being said, who gets everything right on the first try? The Linux kernel? Slashcode? Apache? XFree?

    Yes, it could have been written better the first time, but no one gets it right the first time. They had the benefit of real-world profiling, of testing on OS X, X.1, and probably X.2 at this point, they can see where things can be improved, they can see real-world issues with OS X, or new features/code/libraries that can be used and abused, and they released a patch. This sounds exactly like what any other software company would do, except other software companies don't have this much code behind them.

    I'm all about bashing MS, but come on people, don't be unfair about it.

    --Dan
    • I agree that the statement was totally unfair-- no code is going to be perfect the first time out. But how is the Office v.X better than Office 2000 without MS Access included? And why do you say OS X has no offie suite? It *comes* with AppleWorks! What's worse, the MS Office for OS X costs more than the same package does on Windows... what a rip!
      • OS X doesn't include AppleWorks, although Apple does bundle that with some of its equipment.

        And, yes, there are features on Microsoft's Macintosh software that haven't yet made it to the Windows version. Not just in Office, but also in Internet Explorer. I can't list them off the top of my head, because I don't use the Windows version. I also can't hazard a guess as to which features exist on the Windows versions that haven't made it to the Macintosh.

        Many people believe that Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit is one of the more innovative units at the company.
        • ...if you are using a pirated serial number. I don't know how they knew, must be some phoning-home taking place, because the serial number (cd key) I was using is owned by someone I knew and I don't think theres more than a few people using it. I installed the update, and now all my Office apps ask for a cd-key on startup. I tried many numbers from a certain database, and all failed. I eventually went back to using the old version (with sudo ipfw add deny udp from any to any 2222 to block it from detecting other coppies with the same key on my network).

          I decided today that even if I could afford Office, I wouldn't. Disabling working software because the numbers don't match up is some lowdown dirty shit.

          Fuck you, bill gates: I'm excercising my power as a consumer by going out of my way to use your software without paying. It's difficult, but it's worth it knowing that you won't get a penny of my money.
      • Sorry, I don't consider Access to be a selling point for Office (or, for that matter, any good at all). Filemaker has been the de facto standard on MacOS for ages before Access ever showed up. Microsoft Access support would be a waste of time. Access is also the only 'mainline' MS Office program that wasn't created on the Mac and ported to Windows as well. Perhaps this has something to do with it. Either way, if you're doing databases on MacOS, you want Filemaker.

        If you want something more concrete, how about IE 4 for Mac being more standards compliant than any other browser at the time? Or how about Outlook letting you disable rendering HTML mail, which MS has refused to do on Windows for years.

        --Dan
    • Its a painful thing to listen to, this marketing twist. 1000 performance improvements indeed.

      What does it mean? Do you list every thing that could possibly "improve" things and count that as a performance improvement? Most companies wouldn't use this line. Its a meaningless marketing statement that deserves a bit of slamming.

      What this means to me is they didn't have anything they could point out as an improvement on a bulletted list.

      The new 2003 Honda Accord, with 2000 performace improvements over the 2002 model.

      • What's new in this version:

        • Quartz text smoothing: Users of Mac OS X version 10.1.5 (which Apple hasn't released as of this story) or higher can take advantage of the Quartz drawing engine to smooth text edges. Quartz text smoothing makes on-screen text easier to read, particularly in Word and Entourage. Quartz text smoothing is also available in Excel and PowerPoint.
        • FileMaker Server integration: In Excel X, external data can be imported from FileMaker Pro databases hosted on a FileMaker Server. Data can also be imported from a local FileMaker Pro database.
        • ODBC integration: Excel X reintroduces support for Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), enabling users to refresh existing queries that were created in Excel 98, Excel 2001 and Excel for Windows.
        • Button face customization: Button face customization in Word X, Excel X and PowerPoint X allows users to easily change the image that appears on a toolbar button. Users can either choose from supplied images or create and paste button images with the graphics editor.
        Office wide improvements provided in Service Release 1 include:
        • Performance of the Genie-effect in features such as the Formatting Palette in Word X, Excel X and PowerPoint X has been improved significantly.
        • PowerPoint X, Excel X and Word X no longer quit on waking.
        • The overall stability and security of Word X, Excel X and PowerPoint X have been improved.
        • The Office Assistant no longer displays as a blank or white box in any Office v. X program.
        • There is greater stability for users working with Visual Basic for applications in Office v. X programs.
        • Font improvements in Office v. X programs enable the former WYSIWYG font menu to behave as a Mac OS X font menu should.
        • Highly encrypted documents are easier to open.
        • Printing has been redesigned to work natively and seamlessly under Mac OS X.
        Improvements in Word X:
        • Stability enhancements: To enable Word X to run more smoothly, stability enhancements have been made throughout the program, including for tasks such as creating large tables and using the rulers.
        • Performance improvements: Users will notice increased speed when printing documents with certain complex border art applied, and better performance when manipulating on-screen objects and scrolling vertically through long documents.
        • Toolbar customization: Toolbar customization and behavior work correctly.
        • Windows: Document windows work seamlessly with one another.
        • Custom dictionary: When adding words to the dictionary, users will no longer get an alert stating that the custom dictionary is full.
        • Accented characters: Users can enter accented characters in all fonts. Improvements in Excel X
        • Saving and opening: Users can save a file in Excel X and then open it in Excel 98 without getting an Out of Memory message.
        • Freezing panes and AutoComplete: AutoComplete works correctly when used with freezing panes.
        • Improved chart performance: Performance has been improved by as much as four times when charts are used in Excel.
        Improvements in PowerPoint X:
        • Performance and appearance improvements:
          • Users will notice a better response time when caching two large or complex pictures during screen updates.
          • When the Free Rotate tool is used to rotate text on a slide, PowerPoint X will smooth the edges of characters on the screen, making the text more readable and as attractive as text running horizontally. The rotated text smoothing improvement is not related to Quartz text smoothing and cannot be turned off.
          • With Quartz, transparency effects are much faster in PowerPoint slide shows. The time required to prepare the next slide in a slide show is shortened. Transparent objects also animate correctly during a slide show.
        • Stability improvements: Improved stability means that users will have a smoother, and more reliable experience with PowerPoint X.
        • Accented characters: Users can now enter accented characters in all fonts while the Formatting Palette is displayed.
        • Faxing: Faxing from PowerPoint X print options now works as it should.
        Improvements in Entourage X:
        • Database improvements: The size limit for Entourage X databases has been increased from 2GB to 4GB. Entourage X also can rebuild some damaged databases that could not be rebuilt before.
        • Performance improvements: Entourage X requires less use of a computer's hard drive and access to the user's identity on the network, which improves performance and reduces laptop computers' reliance on the battery.
        • IMAP mail improvements: Users with an Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) mail account can synchronize folders as they switch between working offline and online. They will receive a more accurate display of information about what's on the IMAP server, such as the number of unread messages in a folder.
        • Improved overall stability: Stability has been improved overall, and particularly when the Entourage Database Daemon is running in the background. Working offline in Entourage X also is more stable, as is the case when running IMAP.

    • Re:A Little Unfair (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rjamestaylor ( 117847 ) <rjamestaylor@gmail.com> on Monday June 03, 2002 @02:34PM (#3633222) Journal
      Hear, hear!

      • In other words, 1000 ways they could have written the code better the first time.

      A programmer didn't write that comment. No one in a technical field wrote that comment. Probably only a ditch-digger could write that comment--I take it back, sometimes ditch diggers have to make changes, too. No, only a person who has never attempted anything of any complexity could have written such an insipid comment such as that.

      I like Office for X, the first version of Office for a Unix system. The biggest complaint I have is MS still cannot connect directly to Exchange with Entourage so that Mac OS Xer's can manage group calendars, etc. That's the rub in my opinion. I wonder if it's really an engineering problem or a marketing one....

    • Jesus, does everyone have to take every little comment by the authors so damn seriously? As soon as I read that line, I said to myself "uh-oh, prepare to read umpteen posts pointing out the obvious fact that software development is hard, cut MS some slack, bla bla bla."

      So predictable, it hurts.

      • "So predictable, it hurts."

        Yeah, as predictable as superfluous MS bashing...
      • > Jesus, does everyone have to take every
        > little comment by the authors so damn
        > seriously?

        Only if you want your legitimate complaints to be taken seriously. Microsoft does a lot of sleazy things, but needlessly trolling them only increases the chances that one's complaints will be dismissed out of hand.
      • uh-oh, prepare to read umpteen posts pointing out the obvious fact

        On the Internet, an incendiary comment meant to evoke obvious, knee-jerk responses is called a troll. Seeing trolls on the font page of *.slashdot is depressing.
    • Is there a way to moderate a story as Troll -1?

      rOD.
      • Is there a way to moderate a story as Troll -1?

        Yes, it's trivial. Just add the line "127.0.0.1 slashdot.org" to your /etc/hosts file, and amazingly only the slashdot troll stories will be selectively filtered out.
    • I heard on Slashdot that Linux is bug-free and never crashes.. er, I mean I heard that Linux 2.6 will be bug-free and never crash.
  • that's 1000 ways they could have made it better the first time--if you were willing to wait until now to get the product.

    Crap, why am I defending MS?

  • 1000 ways they could have written the code
    better the first time.

    Oh come on, are you complaining because MS had bugs in their program? All programs have bugs.

    How many bugs were fixed on the way to Gnome 2.0 or Mozilla 1.0 ? Thousands! Are you accusing the developers of those products for not doing it right the first time?
    • Yes, but at least Mozilla had the decency to be honest about releasing beta software and didn't charge half a grand for it.

      I have no problem with service packs, but when the program in question is based on an existing product that has been in development since the mid-eighties, when the product is expensive, and when the product has this many serious errors in it, I question the viability of an early release, no matter how badly Apple "needed" it. Had Apple spent some time on adding two key features to AppleWorks, (Spellcheck as you type and widow/orphan protection) there would be little need for Microsoft to develop an Office app for X.

      As a guy who used Word v.X often (and finds that it's full of bugs and is the most likely to "unexpectedly quit") the news that there is a service pack is way, way, overdue. An Appleworks 7.0 announcement, however, or completion of the OpenOffice.org port to MacOSX would be much more welcome.

      Yes, no one writes code perfectly the first time - no one but Microsoft would have the audacity to charge for it.

  • Will all those... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Violet Null ( 452694 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @01:34PM (#3632756)
    Who write perfect code the first time around please raise your hands?

    (counts hands)

    Ok, will all those whose perfect code consists of a 'Hello World' application please put their hands down?

    Why, look. No more hands up.
    • Well, I feel left out. What about those of us who write buggy 'Hello world!' programs? Don't we deserve some consideration too?

      #include
      #include
      #include

      void join(char * dest, char * with, char * source[], int start)
      {
      int i;
      for (i = start; source[i] != NULL; i++)
      {
      (i) ? strcat(dest, with) : strcpy(dest, "");
      strcat(dest, source[i]);
      }
      }

      int main(int argc, char *argv[])
      {
      char * something = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char *));
      join(something, "", argv, 1);
      printf("%s\n", something);
      }

      [localhost:~] chris% cc join.c -o join
      [localhost:~] chris% ./join h e l l o w o r l d !
      [localhost:~] chris% helloworld!
    • Does spelling count? If so my first "hello wordl" program was buggy ....
    • ~Hand still raised~ Why? Because I test code AS I write it. I create a base program, make sure it works, then begin adding code a little at a time, testing it as I go. This means that, while my program may have taken 1 hour more than yours to code, I've already saved a lot of time in testing. As I remember, we were taught that this was good programming practice.
      • I test my code as I write - and there are still problems in there. Either the way components interact or just a thought error. Or I misunderstood what the customer meant. If the problem is complex you will never get it right the first time.
  • "1000 ways they could have written the code better the first time"

    What happened to release early, release often?
    • On increadibly rare occasions, I have written a program or script that has worked 100% right, immediatly. At most, these have topped out at 100 lines or so.

      I am always shocked when this happens, and usually dislocate my shoulder patting myself on the back when it does happen. :-)

      So, what exactly are the odds that something that is at least a million lines of code will work right the first time?
      • Exactly.
        And it was 1000 performance improvements. Who the hell writes 100% perfect, fully optimized and all features present on the first release code? Not even God managed that, it's called evolution!
  • In other words, 1000 ways they could have written the code better the first time.


    Kind of like the difference between Mac OS X and 10.1? Before you Mac users slam something, be reminded of your humble beginings as well.

  • Yes, but where's the LIST of SPECIFICS? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @02:00PM (#3632962) Homepage
    "In all we've made more than 1,000 performance improvements, updates, and fixes across the whole Officev.X suite. As a result, you'll find that Officev.X is faster, more stable, and more efficient."

    Blah, blah... generic... It's new! improved! New package, same great taste!

    What did we think? As a result of the fixes, Office would be slower, crash more and be less efficient?

    OK, the announcement is not TOTALLY content-free, but one of the things I detest about Microsoft is the absence of any well-structured bug lists that would enable you to tell whether the specific issue that affects you has been fixed. "Previously, there were problems typing accented characters in certain fonts while the Formatting Palette was displayed. These problems have been fixed." What problems WERE they?

    Where's the numbered list of 1000?

    How do we know it's really 1,000 and not just some marketer's hyperbole for "lots and lots?"

    And another thing I hate is Microsoft's continuing pigheaded refusal to call them "bugs."

    OK, I feel better now.

    • "What did we think? As a result of the fixes, Office would be slower, crash more and be less efficient?"

      You weren't a Mac user in the mid-90s were you?

      Word 6:

      Slower? Yep!

      Crashed more often? Oh yeah!

      Less efficient? The media took up space in the dumpster no more or less efficiently than anything else in there. The boxes and manuals had glossy stock covers which meant they had to be thrown away in "mix recyclables" instead of "white paper". So I would say, "Yes, slightly less efficient."

      Actually, I agree with all the real points of your post. And it's unfair to the current Mac team at Microsoft to give them too much flack for the marketing droids and the sins of their (hopefully sacked) coding elders. It's just that... well Word 6 was REALLY bad.

      • I was a Mac user in February, 1984. Yeah, I know... I was really slow to "get it."

        I used Word 1.x (good), Word 3.x (totally different from 1.x but good) (yes, the marketroids were already in full swing, there wasn't any version 2... well, I forget what the stupid reason was), Word 4.x (lackluster tweak to 3), Word 5.x (pretty good). I skipped 6 altogether. I've found and continue to find Office 98 very frustrating, though not as bad as 6. One of my frustrations is that the main thing that would tempt me to upgrade to the new Office would be a solid bug list that would convince me that the worst annoyances in 98 have actually been fixed...
        • You forgot the reasons for version skipping? Why it was none other than marketing. Wordperfect had a higher version number than MS Word at the time (6.0 vs. 2.0 AFAIR) and MS decided to skip up to a version number higher than WP. That started a brief version number war until MS decided to dump versions altogether and name releases after the last two digits of the release year, until they became Y2K compliant, and now release versions based on the entire year.

  • Microsoft Killing Pirates? (Score:3, Informative)

    by dasspunk ( 173846 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @02:06PM (#3633018)
    Looks like M$ is trying to weed out the pirated copies of Office X by killing all known pirated serial numbers when you install this update. Either that or there are some serious bugs with the installer. See some complaints here [versiontracker.com].
  • If you take a look at the release notes [microsoft.com], under the Quartz text smoothing heading, you'll notice that you need 10.1.5 in order to to have Quartz work.

    Seems like the new version update is finally around the corner.

  • BAH! (Score:4, Funny)

    by EnVisiCrypt ( 178985 ) <{moc.liamtoh} {ta} {tsiroehtevoorg}> on Monday June 03, 2002 @02:27PM (#3633176)
    In other words, 1000 ways they could have written the code better the first time.

    Damn straight.

    In my day, we wrote programs to include everything we would ever need. Before we needed it.

    Why, I even finished a program before I started it and it wasn't buggy.

    And the code conformed to standards, before the standards were written. And I say programmers are sissies these days. I don't care what "Intel" or "IBM" says, I'm using the instruction set I had 25 years ago, nothing more, nothing less. Vector processing, I spit in your face. ptoo!
  • I'm running 10.1.4 with a non pirated version of Office X and I've had no problems with the SR after using it for 30 minutes. But I have yet to try anything difficult...like add clip art for instance.
  • I have a couple beefs with the original version of Office X. Does anyone know if they've been fixed in SR1?

    1. Text entry in Word doesn't support the normal Mac OS X way of entering characters in other character sets. (This may be tied to the fact that the Mac and Windows versions use a common file format; I don't know. That still doesn't make it good behaviour.)

    2. The interface for text entry, etc. follows the Windows conventions, not the Mac OS ones. What I mean by this is such things as how the keys behave when you're scrolling through text on the keyboard, and what happens when you click the mouse below the last line of text - small annoyances, but frustrating to a long-time Mac user. (Whether the Mac conventions are better or not isn't so much the issue; the issue is that, if you're going to develop a Mac OS X app, follow the Mac OS X interface conventions, not the Windows ones!)

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