Before you upgrade to Office 2007 Beta 2 TR

Office 2007 beta 2 technical refresh was released today. The office client applications (word, excel, powerpoint) are an upgrade. As excited as we all are, do not upgrade to beta 2 TR until you understand a known issue in technical refresh. In the installation/deployment training live meeting, the speaker stated that due to schema changes, any office document saved in the office 2007 beta 2 format, may NOT open in the technical refresh. Yes, may NOT open.

The workaround is to open each document in the beta 2 install and save them in Office 2003 format. Then, when you install technical refresh, the documents will open. I know for our RDP project, this is a big pain in the neck. We have dozens of documents saved in 2007 format. There was no indication on whether this would be fixed for RTM. Since they are calling it a known issue, I am hopeful.

New Chicago SharePoint User Group

Much of my focus lately has been on Office 2007 RDP projects. While I'm stuck in bug hell waiting for Beta 2 TR, I ran across an email in my inbox regarding a new user group.

An old coworker of mine, Asif Rehmani, is starting a Chicago SharePoint user group. The first meeting will be at the Microsoft office in downtown Chicago on September 27. Alex Paytuvi, Microsoft SharePoint Evangelist, will be speaking. If you are interested, please RSVP:

https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=111584

Asif works for SharePoint Solutions, a SharePoint training provider. These guys build their own training curriculum. I've heard positive feedback from people I've referred to SharePoint Solutions. Their website has significant information on SharePoint including code snippets, tips, and tricks. Check it out.