You know the feeling; out of nowhere you are rear-ended by another car and wonder what the heck happened. You were motoring along just fine and looking forward to getting to your destination. Now you have to deal with the damage and the insurance company.
So it was with an upgrade to Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate this past week. From then on, it’s been an uphill battle trying to gain some normalcy in a daily business regimen. Up to this point, I was resistant to changing versions of Microsoft Office since everything seemed to be running just fine. Friends, family, and business associates have been encouraging me to go for one of three options: 1) Use StarOffice, a.k.a, OpenOffice.org, 2) Go 100% online with various applications from Google, or 3) Upgrade to Office 2007.
I quickly scrapped the Google idea. Past experience didn’t bode well for that as a solution. StarOffice was an attractive option. But, there are some newer applications in the Office Suite from Microsoft that had caught my attention and I was interested in taking them for a test run.
After comparing versions, I chose the Office 2007 Ultimate Full Version (versus an upgrade; the reason is another story in and of itself). I didn’t have any need for the Office Accounting add-on, but clients had been asking us about Business Contact Manager (can be bundled in with Outlook as a standalone, too). This seemed like an opportunity to ‘give it another go’; the last time we looked at it, it was unimpressive compared to other contact management or CRM tools.
The first burp in the installation came shortly after choosing “Upgrade” for the installation. Everything appeared normal until I opened Outlook. Error messages starting popping like microwave popcorn. The first was a reference to a missing link to a file, followed by a prompt asking for the prior version’s CD. Thinking this was some quirky validation scheme, I complied and assumed it was resolved. Outlook performed, and other than the new appearance and Ribbon (tool bar), I was operational – not so fast, my older established business rules for email, and folders, don’t work; something else for me to attend to.
When I came back for the next day’s use, the errors were back. I poked around the Web and found this was a common problem, and a little trial and error solved one problem by deleting an unnecessary file (leftover from the prior version) . But, the Install error message continued to ask for the CD. Assuming it was a version compatibility or licensing issue from the upgrade, I decided to call Microsoft’s Tech Support.
The first call’s recommendation didn’t work; but, a second call for the same problem pointed in the right direction. By the time I was welcomed back from the long hold by the tech – doesn’t anyone have an escalation plan anymore – I had already searched the knowledgebase (KB) and discovered what might be the resolution; while waiting, I had downloaded the utility file associated with solving the problem.
It turns out that the upgrade did not fully remove all the prior version files and entries; using Add Remove Programs wasn’t much help, either – that generated a new error message. The utility cleaned things up and the error message in Outlook went away.
I continued on to install Business Contact Manager (BCM). Little did I know that would introduce a new set of problems. As an aside, it took me awhile to find BCM on the CD. Assuming it would install with Outlook (after all, they are dependent on each other), it turns out that it is on Disk 2 of the CDs with no obvious mention; it’s not marked on the face of the CD, nor any reference in the tiny slip of paper included in the CD case. A mini manual might be nice, too.
When my Auto Archive for messages kicked in, an error message popped up from BCM telling me it couldn’t store the messages due to incompatible file formats with the old Office version. I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, I have some work ahead of me to try and rectify the situation; it has to do with the older format storing in a non-Unicode data file and the newer version storing in a Unicode data file. Apparently a similar problem exists for older .pst files that relates to a file size limitation in storing email. Good information for me – I have a large archive .pst - and an additional incentive to make the conversion. Why the error referenced BCM is still a mystery to me.
Since the BCM database is completely empty – I haven’t found the time to try it – I was surprised by a database error this morning. It quickly fell into the “who cares” bin, right along with the MS-imposed reminder to back it up. You can see that I am not eager to evaluate BCM any time soon based on these experiences. I am left wondering just how compatible this add-on is. More so, one quirk I found already is that your Contacts in Outlook are stored separately from BCM. I have this gut feeling that this is cobbled together in some way, and that gives me pause.
The odd thing about this experience is that all the other applications in the Suite seem to be running just fine. The only two applications that didn’t clean-up in the install were Outlook and Publisher. And, the only Office 2007 application causing fits is Outlook (and BCM). What application do I use the most in the Suite? You guessed it; Outlook.
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