We got Microsoft Office 2007 installed on our office computers now. My first impression: “Oh my god… blue! How do I change the color?” I searched half an hour in the MS Office menus and in the help… no way. I tried the MS Office live support… no way. Finally I found it somewhere (especially for Outlook, as this is the application I am used to have opened):

Open a message or create a new one
-> Click on the fancy colorful MS Office button at the upper left
-> Click on the “Editor Properties” button which is on the lower right of the MS Office button dialog
-> Go to “Popular”
-> Change the color scheme.

Purely intuitive. Ah, and be disappointed that there is no “standard style”, just blue, gray or black fancy color schemes.

The MS Outlook option dialogs did not change — the same unusable stuff for about 10 years now. Disappointing. The Signature dialog is still modal and not resizable, although they made it bigger. The task window is also still not resizable. Why? Any reason?

Another issue: How the hell do I turn off antialiasing? My whole system is not antialiased, why MS Office needs to turn it on? I don’t want it. It seems that turning it off is impossible…

What a mess. Really disappointing.

But, to be honest, there are improvements: The search field in Outlook (finally!) for example. And the so called “Ribbon” really makes it easier to find stuff — I didn’t expect this –, but it kills room on your screen.

Update: Incredible, there is a “Copy Hyperlink” entry in the context menu of Outlook!

From: Information Services

We wanted to let everyone know that to help improve your PC’s performance and to prepare for the coming upgrade to Office 2007, Information Services is planning to install Windows Search…

No, no kidding. If it wouldn’t be so sad, it would be very funny.