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New Microsoft Apps: Messenger 5.1, Office 2004 11.2.3

clayj

clayj

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jan 14, 2005
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visiting from downstream
Hey, for those of you who use Microsoft apps (as I do), today new versions of MSN Messenger (5.1) and Office 2004 (11.2.3) are available from Mactopia. Office 2004 11.2.3 lets you use Mac OS X Sync Services and Spotlight searches to sync and find Entourage items, use smart cards with Entourage 2004, and addresses security and stability issues.
 
clayj said:
Hey, for those of you who use Microsoft apps (as I do), today new versions of MSN Messenger (5.1) and Office 2004 (11.2.3) are available from Mactopia. Office 2004 11.2.3 lets you use Mac OS X Sync Services and Spotlight searches to sync and find Entourage items, use smart cards with Entourage 2004, and addresses security and stability issues.
Click to expand...

Does use of sync services mean that entourage contacts and calendars can be synced directly to a cell phone or iPod?
 
FWIW, the Microsoft Auto-Updater, at least for me, did not identify Messenger 5.1 as an upgrade, and installing Office 11.2.3 did not result in automatically updating the copy of Messenger that is part of Office. Of course, I use Adium or Mercury, but. ;)

EDIT: From Mactopia... I don't remember MS publicly announcing this before:

Q. Will you re-release Office 2004 for Intel-based Macs?

A. No. There are no plans to re-release Office 2004. With Rosetta, Office 2004 runs well on Intel-based Macs.
Click to expand...
 
mkrishnan said:
FWIW, the Microsoft Auto-Updater, at least for me, did not identify Messenger 5.1 as an upgrade, and installing Office 11.2.3 did not result in automatically updating the copy of Messenger that is part of Office. Of course, I use Adium or Mercury, but. ;)
Click to expand...
Yeah, I thought that was kind of weird... the Office Updater insists that you close Messenger, but it doesn't actually update Messenger. Seems apparent that Office and Messenger share some common components and that's why Messenger must be closed when you update Office.
 
mkrishnan said:
EDIT: From Mactopia... I don't remember MS publicly announcing this before:
Click to expand...

I thought that was common knowledge or expectation, since the next version of Office:Mac would likely arrive next year, sometime after the release of the revised windows version, and right on the 3-year cycles they've had of late (1998, 2001, 2004).
 
Thanks clayj :)

Microsoft Messenger looks no different and has no different features, but that just mite be me :eek:
 
Le Big Mac said:
I thought that was common knowledge or expectation, since the next version of Office:Mac would likely arrive next year, sometime after the release of the revised windows version, and right on the 3-year cycles they've had of late (1998, 2001, 2004).
Click to expand...

I could be wrong...I believe that what you are saying is correct, but that the previous public statement from MS was that they would make Office 04 available as a universal binary. Doesn't matter to me. But I thought I remember that people have said here that they said this at the original Macworld at which the Intel transition was announced.
 
mkrishnan said:
I could be wrong...I believe that what you are saying is correct, but that the previous public statement from MS was that they would make Office 04 available as a universal binary. Doesn't matter to me. But I thought I remember that people have said here that they said this at the original Macworld at which the Intel transition was announced.
Click to expand...
I remember what's-her-name (the woman who runs the Mac BU at Microsoft) saying that, too.

Guess they figured out it would be a lot more work than anticipated and decided to concentrate on just making a whole new version (Office 2008?) for the Mac. Sometimes it's easier to start from scratch than to try to go in to something and change out old bits for new bits. (Pretty sure the Windows version that's coming out later this year is Office 2007.)
 
I don't know if you can answer this question, but on the off chance that it's common knowledge... what type of IDE was Office:Mac 2004 developed in? It wasn't made in XCode, was it? Does MS have an internal IDE or some kind of toolkit that allows them to work in Studio and make a Mac application out of it? I wonder how hard getting Office to run in Intel native code would be. Although personally, I think their decision is reasonable, especially if the tradeoff would have been a significant delay on Office:Mac 12.
 
mkrishnan said:
I could be wrong...I believe that what you are saying is correct, but that the previous public statement from MS was that they would make Office 04 available as a universal binary. Doesn't matter to me. But I thought I remember that people have said here that they said this at the original Macworld at which the Intel transition was announced.
Click to expand...

I didn't recall that statement. Then again, I don't pay that much attention. Probably what the next poster said--they decided it made more sense to put the resources to the next generation version rather than this one.

I take it as a good sign that they'll be introducing a new version sooner rather than later. And, yeah, I know it's MS, but they deserve credit for continuing to provide a high-quality product for the Mac. Not much else, but at least that.
 
Just thought I'd drop a quick note to say that Sync Services, for me, seems to be a hit-and-miss affair. Synchronisation of my contacts from Apple's Address Book to Entourage was flawless but iCal doesn't seem to be syncing up at all. Not sure why so if anyone has suggestions then I'm all ears.

Spotlight support at last. Tomorrow I'll be running Entourage again and will see how well it works at work. It's looking pretty promising at the moment but I suspect that I'll need to spend some time playing about with various settings to get things right.
 
Kelmon said:
Spotlight support at last. Tomorrow I'll be running Entourage again and will see how well it works at work. It's looking pretty promising at the moment but I suspect that I'll need to spend some time playing about with various settings to get things right.
Click to expand...
Spotlight support with Entourage is working great for me... I can type in someone's name, and it's finding all messages and appointments with their name in it PLUS their contact, if they have one. And this is with a mailbox on an Exchange Server that's being accessed with Entourage.
 
clayj said:
Spotlight support with Entourage is working great for me... I can type in someone's name, and it's finding all messages and appointments with their name in it PLUS their contact, if they have one. And this is with a mailbox on an Exchange Server that's being accessed with Entourage.
Click to expand...

This is great. I'm an Entourage (& Office) user, and the Spotlight feature in Entourage will be a big help for me.

Do you have to re-index your files before it will search the Entourage files? If so, how?
 
Wonder whats new with Messenger 5.1. Probably performance fixes. When are they gonna add webcam, voice, and emoticons to it?! Didnt happen with the release of 5.0... here's to hoping 6.0 will do!
 
lpshean said:
Wonder whats new with Messenger 5.1. Probably performance fixes. When are they gonna add webcam, voice, and emoticons to it?! Didnt happen with the release of 5.0... here's to hoping 6.0 will do!
Click to expand...

I wouldn't use the other things, but I hope they release one with support for emoticons soon :(
 
mkrishnan said:
EDIT: From Mactopia... I don't remember MS publicly announcing this before:
Click to expand...

That FAQ that you quoted from has been up on Mactopia since 30 January (which you can see at the bottom of the page). At Macworld, we announced that we announced that we are actively working on the next version of Office:Mac.

Regards,
Nadyne.

--
Nadyne Mielke | user experience researcher
Microsoft Corporation | Macintosh Business Unit
 
Yeah it is frustrating! But Mercury Messenger seems to do the trick, although i dun quite like the UI of it.
 
tomw said:
Microsoft Messenger looks no different and has no different features, but that just mite be me :eek:
Click to expand...

The Messenger update gives new features to people who are using Messenger in a Live Communications Server environment, which mostly impacts people who use Messenger in a corporate setting.

Regards,
Nadyne.

--
Nadyne Mielke | user experience researcher
Microsoft Corporation | Macintosh Business Unit
 
mkrishnan said:
I don't know if you can answer this question, but on the off chance that it's common knowledge... what type of IDE was Office:Mac 2004 developed in? It wasn't made in XCode, was it? Does MS have an internal IDE or some kind of toolkit that allows them to work in Studio and make a Mac application out of it? I wonder how hard getting Office to run in Intel native code would be. Although personally, I think their decision is reasonable, especially if the tradeoff would have been a significant delay on Office:Mac 12.
Click to expand...

I believe Office was developed using Metrowerks Codewarrior just like a lot of other big Mac apps (including Photoshop). I know MS is working on bringing it over into XCode so that it can be compiled as a universal binary. Moving it to XCode and preparing it to be compiled as a UB are both relatively big jobs, so I can see why MS is planning to wait to release a UB until Office 12 comes out.
 
iCal Syncing Working For Anyone?

Hi Guys,

I posted a bit earlier that Entourage didn't seem to be synchronising with my iCal calendars but that it was successful in syncing with Address Book. Has anyone else had problems syncing iCal with the updated Entourage or is it only me that is having issues here?
 
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