Getting  Along With Your Computer Column Archive

Updates and Answers

By Cate Eales
Appeared October 25, 2007 on castanet.net

This week we have a couple of answers to readers' questions, and news on important security updates for Windows users.


You can be compatible without being identical!
I received an email recently from someone who has Office 2007 on her computer and wanted to exchange and collaborate on documents with someone who has Office 2003. She wanted to know where she could obtain a cheap but legal copy of Office 2003 so they could share.

Well, here's the good news. Neither one of these people needs to buy anything else. They can collaborate on Office documents even though they have different versions. It's really, really easy.

By default, Office 2007 saves documents in a different format than older versions of Office. But you can absolutely save your Office 2007 documents in the old formats, too. Simply changing a setting in Office 2007 will accomplish this. You can learn how to make your documents compatible with older version here.

Now for those of us who don't have Office 2007, wouldn't it be totally great if everyone who had it would take the time to look over that article and make the changes to their computers? Well, yes, but I don't think that's going to happen, either! But again, there's some good news. Microsoft has issued a free MS Office Compatibility Pack, available here. Once you have that installed, you can work with the new file formats. Read more here.


Get a Spell Checker for Outlook Express
From time to time I get an email from someone who says, "Outlook Express won't spell check! How can I fix that?"

If you don't have any Microsoft Office products installed, Outlook Express lacks a spell checker. So Outlook Express is working exactly as designed! Isn't that nice? Thanks, Microsoft!

If you need one (And I know I do. Just ask my mother.) you can try a free product called Spell Checker for OE, available here. If you want something that will spell check in almost any Windows program, try FreeSpell, available here. I don't use either one myself, but both come highly recommended, and both are free of adware.


Internet Explorer 7 will be reissued
Yes, reissued. Internet Explorer 7 was released to the public just about a year ago. Now, you are free to download an "improved" version of IE7, and you are not required to go through the Windows Genuine Advantage validation. One improvement is that the Menu bar will now be turned on by default instead of being turned off by default. Here's hoping they've improved the Phishing Filter as well!

IE7 will be offered as part of the regular Updates routine, so it won't be offered to everyone at once. If you'd like to check it out or even download it, browse on over here.


Important updates for Adobe Reader and RealPlayer
If you use Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat in combination with Windows XP and Internet Explorer 7, you should apply the security update, available here.

There is also an important patch for RealPlayer 10.5 and 11 beta. If you have 10.0, RealPlayer recommends you update to 10.5 or 11 AND THEN apply the patch. Get the patch here.

You can always check to see if you have the latest security updates by heading over to the Secunia Software Inspector, here.


Thank you everyone who wrote. Please email your questions, suggestions, and comments to cate@rlis.com. You can look back through the complete column archive by browsing here. If you'd like to subscribe to this column by email, please visit this link.  It's easy, and free. If you'd prefer the RSS Feed, click here.

Links
MS Office Compatibility Pack https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en
Use earlier versions of MS Office to work with Office 2007 files http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924074
Make your MS Office 2007 documents compatible with older versions of MS Office http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100444751033.aspx
Spell Checker for OE http://www.snapfiles.com/get/spelloe.html
FreeSpell http://hcidesign.com/freespell/
Internet Explorer 7 http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/default.mspx
Adobe update http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3806
RealPlayer Update http://service.real.com/realplayer/security/191007_player/en/securitydb.rnx
Secunia Software Inspector http://secunia.com/software_inspector/
Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archives http://rlis.com/column.htm
Get Cate's column by email http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Sub=20618
RSS Feed http://rlis.com/rlis.xml

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Cate Eales has been helping people make online computing safe, accessible and fun for over 20 years. She lives in Kelowna with her husband, Eric, and her dog, Sandy. Cate is a partner in Real Life Internet Solutions, helping individuals and small businesses with virus, spyware and malware eradication; personal computer training and management; digital image management; music transfer; and website design, hosting and management. Email Cate at cate@rlis.com with your comments, suggestions, or questions. To browse the column archives, visit the Real Life Internet Solutions website at www.rlis.com.