All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
Why ‘Office in the Windows Store’ isn’t really Microsoft Office
It’s expected that today (15 June 2017), Microsoft will release ‘Office in the Windows Store’ as a new way to buy Office. Understand the differences between it and ‘Office 2016 for Windows’ or the Windows 10 / Modern apps for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The new release is not just a different way to […]
Secret printer tracking dots
Most color printers have a secret tracking or forensic code added to every page that lets governments and others know when and where the page was printed. It’s just one result of last week’s NSA leak and later arrest. One piece of evidence against Reality Winner was the secret code on the pages she allegedly […]
Office won’t start ‘This app can’t run on your PC’ – Fix
This is a really screwy error message. You try to start an Office desktop program and are stopped with the message ‘This app can’t run on your PC’. Here’s the fix. To make it even stranger, some Office programs will work while others say they can’t run? We’ve seen the very latest version of Outlook […]
Microsoft’s (biased) guides to moving from Google Docs to Office 365
Microsoft has released ‘guides’ for anyone wanting to move from Google Docs to Office 365. They aren’t guides, they’re sales brochures. There’s not a lot of information to help anyone wanting to move their document, email, calendar and contacts between Google and Microsoft’s cloud services. All this thinly disguised marketing was written by sales people, […]
Office for Mac support with the new macOS ‘High Sierra’
Microsoft has given some guidance about Office for Mac support on the upcoming MacOS ‘High Sierra’ 10.13. But not without a little encouragement to buy the Office for Mac. High Sierra will be publicly released in the (northern) autumn and some testers will have it already. There will be a public beta release later in […]
Word documents help Russian election hack
According to a classified NSA report, a Russian hack used Word documents as part of their attempts to interfere in the 2016 US Presidential election. The report also shows that some often-repeated security advice is worthless in the 21st Century. The report details how Russian based hackers targeted employees of firms who maintained electoral rolls […]
What? Office Fast Ring catches up with Slow Ring
The latest ‘Fast Ring’ Insiders update to Office for Windows restores the correct versioning between the Fast and Slow Ring ‘Insiders’ releases. Normally, the latest changes and new features appear in the Fast Ring release. After the bugs have been discovered by the fearless Fast Ring testers, an update goes out to the ‘Slow Ring’. […]
How to STOP a specific document from being searched / indexed?
Windows will automatically index and let you search Office documents on your computer or network – how can you stop that happening? Maybe the document is personal or so private you don’t want anyone to find it with a Windows Search. Or discover that the document even exists! Password Protection The most direct way to […]
The Supremes help save money with printing
The US Supreme Court (aka The Supreme’s) has sided with consumers in a case about refilling printing toner or ink cartridges. Alas, printer makers still have other ways to grab extra money from you. Lexmark sued Impression Products who have been refilling ink/toner cartridges. The case alleged that Lexmark’s patents on cartridge technology were being […]
OneDrive gets expiring links for Office 365 users
Microsoft has added another useful option for Office 365 users on OneDrive; expiring links. Send people a link to a file saved on OneDrive has been possible for a long time. That link could be ‘read only’ or let the receiver edit the file (document, worksheet, presentation etc.). Now you can make the link only […]
Wannacrypt ROI is why we’ll see more ransomware
The makers of Wannacrypt made some quick money for a small investment. That means other’s will copy their success or take advantage of the fear and confusion. WannaCrypt has received a lot of attention but it’s important to remember that ransomware isn’t new. The global publicity about WannaCrypt changed how it was handled. It’s different from […]
Wannacrypt rescue without paying – if you’re lucky
There’s now a way to recover files locked up by Wannacrypt ransomware without paying the attackers a thing but there are some catches. Adrien Guinet at Quarkslab has developed Wcry, decryption code for WannaCrypt. At the time of writing it only works for Windows XP computers, even then, it needs a bit of luck. Windows […]
Excel – Transform by Example looks great
Microsoft overuses the term ‘exciting’ to describe their latest work but the new ‘Transform by Example’ for Excel looks genuinely exciting. However you get data for Excel, the common problem is ‘massaging’ it to fit your needs. Dates need changing to match Excel, addresses need splitting into address/state/zip and names separated into first/middle/last. Excel’s Get […]
Microsoft is to blame for WannaCrypt/ransomware and lots of other troubles
A New York Times article raises our blood pressure and not because the paper is a mouthpiece for left wing bleeding hearts and fellow travelers.* In Ransomware Attack, Where Does Microsoft’s Responsibility Lie? accepts the standard line that Microsoft is doing its best to solve security problems as they arise. No mention that Microsoft made […]
Microsoft plays a WannaCrypt/ransomware distraction game … and wins!
Microsoft played a great PR game over the last few days. They managed to deflect responsibility for the WannaCrypt ransomware global outbreak and even make the company look like the victim. Make no mistake, the main responsibility for the WannaCrypt trouble lies with Microsoft. Some blame can be directed to the US Intelligence agencies and […]
Major Office for Mac security updates
Microsoft has released a patch for the latest security bugs in Office 2016 and 2011 for Mac. Three different memory corruption bugs are fixed. A hacked document tinkers with computer memory and tricks the computer into running an unauthorized program. We’ve seen these problems before and we’ll see more in the future. One memory corruption […]
