legov Posted July 27, 2013 Share Posted July 27, 2013 Fack's sake, Microsoft is pissing me off I just bought Office 365 (University Edition) off the Microsoft website, and I can't get it to install. It keeps telling me that "Something went wrong. Sorry we ran into a problem." but nothing else. I've tried uninstalling the trial version of Office 2010 I have in my computer, I have also gone onto the Microsoft troubleshooting forums, and done the obligatory google. Nothing has worked. Any help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted July 27, 2013 Share Posted July 27, 2013 (edited) I guess advising you to try and get a refund and use LibreOffice or GoogleDocs instead isn't the response you want? If you've just uninstalled Office 2010 trial through add/remove programs, it doesn't perform a clean uninstall, it leaves files all over the place, try running this MS utility to ensure everything is gone. That and a repair install of Office 365 if it shows in your add/remove programs usually works. Office 365 throws a fit and refuses to work if there's any trace of another Office version on the machine, but can't remove old versions itself, because it's crap. If there's definitely no trace of old versions and it still does it, then disable your firewall, assuming you have one, make sure Office 365 is completely removed (I find it usually shows in add/remove programs even if the install fails..) and try a fresh download and install. Failing that, seriously, Libreoffice! Edited July 27, 2013 by Davkaus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 27, 2013 Administrator Share Posted July 27, 2013 Microsoft software is dreadful. I have to agree though, try to get a refund and use something that just works. I'd go for Google docs personally. The collaboration tools give it the edge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted July 27, 2013 Author Share Posted July 27, 2013 (edited) I never had any intention to buy MS Office to start with. I never had any problems with the older versions of it, but me and my parents usually put off buying it for as long as possible because it was so goddamned overpriced. This is the first time I've had installation problems though. If I had the choice, I would check out other options (currently using OpenOffice), but unfortunately I'm supposed to use MS Office for class, not its less well-known alternatives. Edit: Yes Davkaus, I've tried using the MS utility. It refused to run as well Edited July 27, 2013 by legov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 27, 2013 Administrator Share Posted July 27, 2013 Do you mean you have to hand in work in certain formats? All the alternatives can output MS's formats, but better still they can output PDF which displays (more or less) identically regardless of where someone is reading. Or do you mean you have a class just for MS Office? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted July 27, 2013 Author Share Posted July 27, 2013 Or do you mean you have a class just for MS Office? Yeah something like that, learning basic word processing but it's all done via Office. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 27, 2013 Administrator Share Posted July 27, 2013 Mandating a piece of software which will look and behave completely different within 5 years seems a bit dumb to me. It's easy to teach the principles of word processing and spreadsheets with any of the tools available and the others are a LOT cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted July 27, 2013 Author Share Posted July 27, 2013 No, the teacher didn't mandate it, but he uses a lot of features that are (I assume) unique to MS Office. I'd rather play it safe and use MS Office than buy an alternative and run the risk of missing out on certain features that I might have to use in class, regardless of the cost and quality of the alternative. Also, with the student discount the price becomes a lot more reasonable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 27, 2013 Administrator Share Posted July 27, 2013 The alternatives mentioned in the thread are all free. That's quite reasonable. Oh, and they actually work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted July 27, 2013 Author Share Posted July 27, 2013 The alternatives mentioned in the thread are all free. That's quite reasonable. Oh, and they actually work. Will give them a shot Even so, as I said, using an alternative means running the risk of shitting my pants in class because of features that are missing or different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 27, 2013 Administrator Share Posted July 27, 2013 As I said, personally I'd question the benefits of learning specific features in a particular piece of software as opposed to learning the fundamentals of presentation, layout and readability, but if depends whether you are trying to learn word processing or learn this year's version of MS Word. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted July 27, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted July 27, 2013 Depends what you want. I use Google Docs and Excel for work, and the former, whilst it work, doesn't come close to being as good as Excel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 27, 2013 Administrator Share Posted July 27, 2013 How many people can you have simultaneously accessing an Excel spreadsheet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted August 2, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted August 2, 2013 (edited) How many people can you have simultaneously accessing an Excel spreadsheet? As I said, it depends what you want. If you want a spreadsheet that a lot of users can access at once, edit at the same time and that stuff then I'd absolutely agree that google docs is the way to go. We use it at work for those very reasons when we need to. But if I'm using a spreadsheet that only I need access to or only one person needs access to at a time, there's absolutely no way I'd use Google Docs for that. It's adequate, but it's not as good as Excel. Edited August 2, 2013 by Stevo985 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted August 2, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted August 2, 2013 But to answer your question, you can have a lot of people simultaneously accessing an Excel spreadsheet. It's just not as simple and straightforward to do it as it is on Google Docs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 It's laughable how anti Microsoft some people are. I am in a far better position to critique Office, especially Excel than most of you as I've used it daily for 8 years now. It pisses all over open office and Google docs. Those may be fine choices for simplistic stuff but any heavier workou need excel. Office is the standout Microsoft product and it'll never be replaced in big corporations by weaker knockoffs let alone cloud versions like Google offer. The entire Office Suite is great. Outlook is on a different planet to Lotus Notes. Word, Excel, Visio, One Note, PowerPoint. It's a very comprehensive and powerful suite of software that has no rival. Despite your anti Microsoft or hope for a rival. There is none any serious users would use and of course non IT/programmer as they are the anti Microsoft group. To a man nearly. Office is great. Windows is flawed. Live with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 How many people can you have simultaneously accessing an Excel spreadsheet? Is there a limit? We've never reached one. You open a read only instance if someone else has it open for editing. You cannot ever have two people editing the same workbook and never ever would you want that. Absolute carnage and a huge operational risk that'd be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted August 2, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted August 2, 2013 (edited) How many people can you have simultaneously accessing an Excel spreadsheet? Is there a limit? We've never reached one. You open a read only instance if someone else has it open for editing. You cannot ever have two people editing the same workbook and never ever would you want that. Absolute carnage and a huge operational risk that'd be. You can, actually. You can share Excel workbooks and edit them simultaneously (although i think there are limitations to what you can edit) GMail's better than outlook, to be fair. We switched over to that a couple of years back and I'd never want to switch back. Edited August 2, 2013 by Stevo985 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted August 2, 2013 Administrator Share Posted August 2, 2013 The Office suite is so good, and MS believe in it so strongly, that they are re-inventing it into an online system. Like Google. Someone using something for daily 8 years doesn't make it good. I've used spreadsheets daily for a lot longer than that. If you are doing the same things everyday in Excel (or any spreadsheet) then you need a better tool than a spreadsheet. And while we're on it, yes I don't like Microsoft, they produces poor quality software and spend a lot on marketing. But this isn't about Microsoft. Excel is a poor choice for a user starting something new as it locks them into windows. It's expensive and requires regular (paid) upgrades, as does the OS it runs on. For almost all users who honestly evaluate the price point vs function, it's hard to see how they could come out choosing Excel, other than external factors like marketing and existing lock in. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 How many people can you have simultaneously accessing an Excel spreadsheet? Is there a limit? We've never reached one. You open a read only instance if someone else has it open for editing. You cannot ever have two people editing the same workbook and never ever would you want that. Absolute carnage and a huge operational risk that'd be. You can, actually. You can share Excel workbooks and edit them simultaneously (although i think there are limitations to what you can edit) GMail's better than outlook, to be fair. We switched over to that a couple of years back and I'd never want to switch back. Gmail is Web based. You can't run a corporation of thousands of people on Gmail. Outlook is quite a powerful tool in large companies and it's great IMO. As big a Gmail fan as I am for personal stuff. It just wouldn't cut it in a corporation. But I suppose Google ain't targeting big enterprise. That's just an area they wouldn't get traction with right now against Microsoft. Who are as entrenched as anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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