Windows Win7 and Office 2010 for dummy (me)

I know I know, I’m a couple of years late.
But the larger the company, the slower the software rollouts.
Anyway, returning from a year off I got surprised with a shiny new laptop, and Win7 and Office 2010.

I’m not really looking for advice (well, I’ll ask for it if I really need it) just looking for a platform to let of some steam while I poke my way through. ;-)

Day 1

Aaah, shiny new laptop with shiny new software. Would be nice to play with and get to know, alas I’ve got to work with it...now.
Clean, no clutter (as you’d expect from a new system) Just the IE, WinExplorer and Mediaplayer on the Taskbar, ooooh, no systemtray notifications.
Nice, nothing running in the background.
Wait, that’s odd, something SHOULD be running in the background. Company connection software, VNC stuff like that. Why don’t I see it?
Ah…hidden. yes I suppose I don’t need to see if someone from external has connected *sigh* At least I can turn them on again.
Setting up two screens is easy, now for something productive. Outlook and Excel (yes, we’re oldfashioned) ;-)
Start…no Office, ah programs, no Office. hmmm that’s a short list *sigh* a scrollbar, really?
Outlook and Excell, shortcut to desktop, at least that still works.
There, look weird somehow, with a giant bar cluttering up about a quarter of the screen on the laptop, doesn’t really matter on the external screen though.
Must be the famous “ribbon” bar. Filled with lots of stuff I never used before and won’t need. Probably just needs organization.
Hooray, excel can finally count and calculate time, that’s going to save a lot of converting.
Its Ribbon is also filled with 2/3 useless crap, yet the simple things seem to be missing.
Spent 5 minutes trying to insert a column…found out it’s not in the “insert” tab, but in the “start” tab. Very logical, also takes five clicks instead of two. :-(
Trying to reorganize the ribbon is…not self explaining, must do that when I have an hour off. Managed to get the insert column shortcut onto another bar, below the ribbon, yay. More space wasted, but at least no five clicks anymore.
The Taskbar is driving me insane, grouping things is nice for websites, but not for excelfiles, as they all look the same in the thumbnails, also I now klick-mousesearch-klick instead of doubleclick. No big throw

 

You will get used to it, and find it does make sense. Just give it a little time.

 

I don't know how much control you have over the laptop but you can ungroup taskbar items in the taskbar properties.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

I usually insert a column by right-clicking on the column letter (or number in R1C1 format) and insert.

 

Have you installed a browser other than IE yet? Because if you haven't, you really should do that right now...

 

As a new user to Windows 7 I offer you a couple of tips.

1. Right click your Excel icon on the taskbar and select 'Pin this program to taskbar'

2. Right click your Excel icon again and hover over the recent items - a 'pin' appears on the right - click it for your everyday items. Now launch your every day items by a simple right click followed by a left click. Bliss.

You can of course disable the taskbar grouping, but I personally love a nice uncluttered desktop and taskbar.

Windows key + tab will give you a nice way of tabbing through them all and find it more easily.

You can customise the ribbon too. Some things are moved for the sake of it, but some of them are more logical. You do get used to it quite easily.

If you're a regular Visio user, make sure you turn on 'Developer Mode' it'll reveal all those handy options for making custom shapes that are otherwise hidden.

 

There is nothing wrong with modern internet explorer 8/9/10

And don't say other browsers are more secure, they all have their flaws

 

I'm sure I'll get used to it, just wanted to....well, write down my experience (and lose some frustration in the process)
Main problem is that I don't really have time to play around with it.

Company Computer, Company IE ;-)
Doesn't matter though, I don't get paid to surf

Don't even know Visio, we use a lot of customprogrammed programmes, which is why it took the company so long to convert to Win7.

SAP still looks like it's from the early eighties though

 

I rarely use the security argument - as you say, each browser has its flaws. Open source browsers are generally quicker to be patched, though, so does that count as security in one way?

Even with 'modern' IE 8/9/10, they still don't support new technologies like HTML5 or CSS3 properly (hell, until recently they couldn't even support ancient* technologies like HTML4 properly!), and this is the main reason that I urge people to switch to anything but IE. Without supporting new and powerful technologies, even if they are still in the development stage, innovation stops. Thankfully we have these competing browsers that are actually striving for innovation...

*I use ancient in the context of: created before I ever laid hands on a computer

 

I was under the impression that IT support at companies don't like chrome and firefox because they're always updating. IE rarely needs an update and when it does, its via windows update.
That and the fact that some websites (actually quite a lot that I use) still don't work at all or partially with anything other than IE, even with compatibility add ons in chrome/FF

 

This is exactly the reason I stick with IE, and why I won't allow the wife and kids to install other browsers on their machines that I manage

 

Day 2

Text is somehow not sharp, both screens are at their native resolutions, but look interpolated. Strange.
No file history…that’s odd, it should be here somewhere.
I’m still resisting to convert to “classic” look, must give the design a chance.
Found out I can select what is shown in the systemtray and what not, sweet, an actual improvement.
Taskbar now previews the thumbnails when I mouse over them, that’s odd, didn’t do that yesterday? Anyway that solves the thumbnail problem.
File history is starting to appear, as the startmenu keeps rearranging itself to show the programs I used most. Weird, needs getting used to.
Argh! I touched the scrollwheel while in the ribbon and everything went berserk…hmmm there must be a method to this madness.
There is a method, this gigantic bar simply wasn’t big enough and consists of multiple bars. Bwech.

My company even checks the Windows-update Updates for compatibility, so we get them...later

 

Strange - both Firefox and Chrome support HTML4 and CSS2 completely, along with the current W3C JavaScript version. IE I know for a fact supports fewer HTML5 and CSS3 attributes and elements, so what you are saying is that you use badly coded websites that do not adhere to W3C standards.

 

Its mainly erevsion.co.uk, and my schools sharepoint. Erevision.co.uk is looks ancient so Ive got no idea. On the school sharepoint the lists go all messed, and when rolled over flash up and down really fast. Those are pretty much the only 2 times I ever use IE anymore.

 

Day 3

Too much to do to look into this further, only noticeable that even experienced users seem to have problems bookmarking things in Win-Explorer.
I just put a shortcut to the desktop in place, but I think folders are “pinnable” somewhere other than the taskbar.

 

Day 4
Strange behavior allround. Windows doesn’t shut down properly. I guess it doesn’t want me to shut down, just go into sleepstate, as the shutdown isn’t in the list of options when locking the computer.
Anyway when I finally do manage to shut down, it kindof hangs, needing a hardwarerestart.
Locking takes about 6 seconds of seconds. Weird, used to be instantaneous on XP (ctrl-alt-del Enter), now it shows me a black screen first for 6 seconds, then the locking options.
Seems to be connected to my external monitor, without an external monitor it works just as it should.
The external monitor is causing other troubles, windows are often not assigned correctly (not reappearing where they were closed, windows assigning the second window on the wrong side of the first after reconnection.)
The machine generally doesn’t feel faster than my XP one. And this on an i5 with an SSD. For instance logging out of Bit-Tech, takes a couple of seconds after pressing Logout to show me the Logoutdialogue.
On the positive side, autocorrection now detects different languages, which is fantastic.

 

You can create an icon on the desktop to shutdown.

Rt click desktop select new > shortcut type shutdown -s give it the name shutdown and you are done, you can do the same for restart with -R instead of -s

 

Shutdown is in the options for Win7... no need to give it a shortcut on the desktop

Text is somehow not sharp, both screens are at their native resolutions, but look interpolated. Strange.

-- have you enabled smoothtype? or disabled it?


No file history…that’s odd, it should be here somewhere.

-- what do you mean by file history?

I’m still resisting to convert to “classic” look, must give the design a chance.

-- That's a good idea, as win8 no longer has a classic look - also you lose all the useful additions they made to the GUI if you do

Found out I can select what is shown in the systemtray and what not, sweet, an actual improvement.

-- yep, you can hide things if they're not active too which is useful

Taskbar now previews the thumbnails when I mouse over them, that’s odd, didn’t do that yesterday? Anyway that solves the thumbnail problem.

-- It would have done if you had Aero enabled, also if you do "Shift + Tab" it does what "Alt + Tab" does but with a nice flow thing

File history is starting to appear, as the startmenu keeps rearranging itself to show the programs I used most. Weird, needs getting used to.

-- yep on the left it filters the most used applications you use, you can pull the most important ones to the top of the left side and then they wont go any where


Argh! I touched the scrollwheel while in the ribbon and everything went berserk…hmmm there must be a method to this madness.

-- Which ribbon?

There is a method, this gigantic bar simply wasn’t big enough and consists of multiple bars. Bwech.

-- Which bar?



Locking can be done with "Winkey + L" but it shouldn't take 6 seconds - no idea what you've done to break it like that

 

Oops forgot this was windows 7 and not 8

 

you don't need it on Win8 either, just hit "alt f4" from the desktop, and get the standard shutdown options appear...