Currently Microsoft-only, but wanting to change our software soon to support Oracle as well. What are we getting ourselves into? [more inside]
posted by relucent on Jun 5, 2009 - 10 answers

Which of these Java programs can i get rid of and why are they breeding like bunnies? [more inside]
posted by Black_Umbrella on Feb 19, 2009 - 12 answers

I've seen a quotation running around recently, attributed to Bill Gates: "Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight." Did he really say that? [more inside]
posted by pwnguin on Feb 18, 2009 - 17 answers

Do I need to rebuy MS office if I'm replacing a computer? [more inside]
posted by GregX3 on Jan 17, 2009 - 12 answers

Visual Studio for the confused: I've inherited a C#/ASPX Net 1.1 application from what appears to have been some fairly low-skill software developers. The language, systems environment, and cleaning up the software itself aren't problems, but what the hell am I supposed to do with all this IDE stuff? I need learning resources. [more inside]
posted by majick on Sep 24, 2008 - 11 answers

My Win XP laptop came with a trial version of Microsoft *small business* office 2007. Without really thinking about it, I imported a lot of email and Outlook data from my old laptop. Now that the trial is almost over, I bought a retail copy of Outlook 2007 and the Home/student version of Office 2007, and the product keys don't work, since I'm trying to use the product key on the Small Business edition. Can I simply uninstall the trial small biz version, install the Outlook and home/student office, and have my Outlook data intact? Or is there more to be done to accomplish this?
posted by edjusted on Jul 22, 2008 - 7 answers

I have a macro that takes an un-styled document, and tries to put text into the right styles based on what its formatting is. But, if the document already has some scheme of styles, the macro doesn't work very well. So, I would like to transform a Word document into an un-styled version of itself-- but one that retains ALL of the original formatting (italics, small caps, font size, spacing). What would be the most correct way to do this? I have Word 2003 (which the macro needs) and 2007, as well as Word 2008 for Mac. Also-- HTML doesn't work, as it doesn't retain small caps.
posted by yesno on Feb 22, 2008 - 10 answers

Office 2007 (Professional Plus) filter: Why are the Ribbon and other program icons/interface disproportionately stretched? [more inside]
posted by fourstar on Jan 23, 2008 - 2 answers

MS Excel Problem: CAN ANYONE PLEASE HELP? I am a very average PC user having unable to open spreadsheets. I borrowed a copy of MS Office Professional from a friend, but it did not install Excel properly. I no longer have access to those installation CDs. Whenever I try to open a spreadsheet, it prompts me for the CD's. So I bought Excel 97, installed it fine, but still when I try o open a spreadsheet it automatically tries to open it with the XP Professional version... How so I get around this to just use the Excel 97 version now on my computer??
posted by writingjulie on Oct 29, 2007 - 9 answers

Does anybody know if it is possible to clone an Microsoft IIS 5 website to another webserver running IIS 5? I understand how to copy the files and permissions to another server but how do I copy the information contained in the metabase such as virtual directories and directory settings?
posted by LMG on Mar 7, 2007 - 2 answers

Can I buy Microsoft Office Mobile? Where? [more inside]
posted by GhostintheMachine on Dec 15, 2006 - 1 answer

MSWordFilter: how do I convert back after accidentally clicking "send to" and turning my doc into an email? [more inside]
posted by acoutu on Nov 10, 2006 - 4 answers

I'm interested in displaying a system modal dialog on a Symbian S60/UIQ and/or a Windows Mobile device. [more inside]
posted by oferhalevi on Oct 19, 2006 - 3 answers

Updated software for my Microsoft Office Keyboard? [more inside]
posted by frogan on Oct 14, 2006 - 3 answers

Why don't the New York Times Reader, Doppler, and Juice work? Doppler and Juice started crashing on my XP (SP2) box after a period of normal use, and I can't get the Times Reader to run at all. The common thread seems to be that these applications use various versions of .NET. The Times Reader requires the NET 3.0 Framework, which supposedly was downloaded as part of the Reader install. Any suggestions?
posted by lukemeister on Sep 29, 2006 - 7 answers

It's very clear in Microsoft Excel how to calculate formulas using external references, but what isn't clear is how, in several worksheets, to have the same data in certain columns. How do I do this? [more inside]
posted by arimathea on Aug 8, 2006 - 9 answers

Seeing that it's now free, can Microsoft's Virtual PC 2004 work with Windows Media Center Edition 2002 - sp2 as the host OS? [more inside]
posted by Jhaus on Jul 12, 2006 - 4 answers

Working on an MS Access 2000 record-browsing form; the text fields all display as dark grey text on light grey background, no matter what colors or transparency are specified in the design. I've never seen this before. I've been running in circles for 2 hours. What am I missing?
posted by Tubes on Mar 2, 2006 - 12 answers

I've got two columns in MS Excel. They each share 200 numbers. However, one of the columns has an additional 700 numbers. I want the column with 900 sorted in ascending order, with like numbers from the column of 200 beside those in the column of 900. How do I do that?
posted by panoptican on Feb 8, 2006 - 18 answers

Does anyone know a good resource -- better than Microsoft itself -- for easily finding how to turn off specific "features" of Microsoft Word? [more inside]
posted by .kobayashi. on Nov 22, 2005 - 12 answers

LM (LanManager) & NTLM (NT Lan Manager) are old, fairly insecure MS protocols for authentication. Are there any other applications besides Win 3.1, NT (pre-sp4), 95, 98 that would require LM or NTLM for authentication? [more inside]
posted by aacheson on Sep 30, 2005 - 5 answers

Internet Explorer has been on thin ice for a while, and recently it crashed through. I can't even launch the damn program. I've installed Firefox and several delicious extensions, but my knowledge is limited in this whole area. How do I get rid of the old plague? [more inside]
posted by lazaruslong on Feb 28, 2005 - 14 answers

Do you find that MS Office for OS X runs faster than MS Office for Mac OS 9...., run on an OS X Mac in Classic mode (or, whatever it's called...) [more inside]
posted by ParisParamus on Jan 26, 2005 - 8 answers

Where are old copies of Microsoft updates (specifically for Office v.X) stored online? [more inside]
posted by greasy_skillet on Dec 21, 2004 - 5 answers

Can you recommend a flexible Win32 application for designing test plans? [more inside]
posted by Danelope on Nov 15, 2004 - 3 answers

Stupid annoying WinXP question. I installed an older program I use for data analysis in my lab. Every time I click the start menu it shows up as a newly installed program, despite the fact that I've used it quite a bit. I want it to go away and show up as an old program, not highlighted like a new one. The only help I can find using my formidable Google-Fu is "Turn off new program notification". Well, I don't want to do that; I like to know if something new has been added to my machine. Anyone know how XP marks programs as newly installed, or highlighted, and how to turn this off on an individual entry basis rather than across the board?
posted by caution live frogs on Aug 31, 2004 - 3 answers

Is there a way to bulk rename a bunch of folders in Windows XP by just removing any white space? I want to upload these to a web server and would prefer avoiding the %20 madness.
posted by fletchmuy on Aug 31, 2004 - 5 answers

Is there a way to cut'n'paste charts from Excel into Word, without generating huge Word files? I've tried varieties of paste, 'paste special,' and so on, and I can't figure out why an Excel file of charts that's several hundred KB, always turns into a Word file that's at least several MB. I guess I'm missing something obvious, but have no idea what it is.
posted by carter on Jun 24, 2004 - 8 answers

Keeping a daily task list on my Windows computer: is it possible? I don't need anything fancy, just a piece of software or a hack that lets me mark tasks as complete when I'm done with them, that brings yesterday's uncompleted tasks forward to today, and that doesn't bother me with tomorrow's tasks before tomorrow. Can anyone suggest a way to accomplish this? [more inside]
posted by gd779 on Jun 11, 2004 - 7 answers

Virus Question: I have something nasty. It closes any type of anti-virus application I install, closes regedit if I try to get in there, prevents access to anti-virus websites, and yes, there's [more inside]. [more inside]
posted by banished on Apr 28, 2004 - 14 answers

I've got problems with an embedded windows media player, and msdn is being predictably useless... [MI] [more inside]
posted by twine42 on Apr 21, 2004 - 3 answers

In need of a recommendation for an Windows outlining tool that has the same functionality as the Omni Outliner that ships with Mac OSX? Need to document a software testing plan and can't find a program for the Windows that works as well as Omni does for the Mac. All suggestions are appreciated.
posted by specialk420 on Apr 20, 2004 - 8 answers

Bah! I'm working on a Word doc and this program is driving me just batty. It's too clever by half all over the place -- wanting to add hyperlinks, format this way and that-- all kinds of stupidity that are keeping me from controlling the layout the way I want. Any suggestions for a nice, simple word processing program that will just give me the basics of font and tab control and without all of these M$ bloaty gewgaws that get in my way? Stop me before I fire up Illustrator!
posted by mimi on Apr 2, 2004 - 24 answers

Is there software available for Micorosft Windows that slows CPU cycles, emulating a slower machine? For example, if I wanted to test software on a Pentium II 200, emulated on a faster machine.
posted by the fire you left me on Mar 25, 2004 - 5 answers

Your help please in playing DRM protected video clips without DRM software... (further details are contained within) [more inside]
posted by muckybob on Mar 10, 2004 - 4 answers

MS Excel appends a 1 to the name of every file I open. How do I get rid of this? [more inside] [more inside]
posted by trillion on Feb 20, 2004 - 9 answers

Why does the current version of Windows Media Player freeze my Win2K machine? The same wmp clip crashed my machine in both the Real One player and the current WMP, but the older version of WMP plays it just fine.
posted by Irontom on Feb 18, 2004 - 1 answer

This may be a forehead-slapper, but occasionally my taskbar (Win2k) will go dim (dark grey, all icons shaded), as though I've selected it. It'll sometime revert to light grey when I'm not looking. What the heck causes this, and how do I make it go away?
posted by notsnot on Jan 30, 2004 - 1 answer

Academics and scholars: anyone familiar with the text processing product on Windows called Nota Bene? A friend is switching to Macintosh and it's an application area I don't have a lot of experience with. In particular, he likes the fact that Nota Bene stores citation information separate from the formatting, so switching from MLA to APA (?) is easy to do... Any suggestions welcomed.
posted by JollyWanker on Jan 27, 2004 - 14 answers

Any easy way to uncompress about 400 zip archives in a Windows XP directory? I thought I was smart but this problem has made me feel dumb.
posted by johnnydark on Jan 14, 2004 - 10 answers

I just got another Windoze update. After ignoring them for all these years, I got "Blasted" in August, so have started downloading and accepting them all ever since. This one, from Tech Bulletin MS04-003 says the vulnerability is a "Buffer Overrun in MDAC Function Could Allow Code Execution (832483)." I want to know, before I install this one, is it necessary? Is it always/ever safe to trust Microsoft?
posted by Lynsey on Jan 13, 2004 - 12 answers

What windows (2K) software do you prefer to rip CDs to mp3? (Aside from iTunes, which I had to uninstall after it totally hosed my machine.)
posted by jpoulos on Jan 12, 2004 - 10 answers

Now that M$ has ended further development of Outlook Express, I get the feeling I should line up an alternative. Now happens to be a good time for me to do this. Can anyone recommend a Windows mail client that's free & fast with filters/rules, spell check, and a halfway decent mail import/export? I'm actually already running Linux and MacOS on several machines already, so spare me those tips, thank you ;)
posted by scarabic on Jan 11, 2004 - 18 answers

I have a WinXp machine with three hard drives, each one holding 100GB. I'm researching backup alternatives, and there are tons these days (tape drives, external firewire drives, jazz drives, etc.). I'd like to find a solution that strikes a nice balance between ease of use, cost and durability. Any suggestions?
posted by grumblebee on Jan 8, 2004 - 8 answers