15 Must Have Free Microsoft Downloads
Microsoft offers a plethora of software that users can download and install without paying a single cent to the company. However, the software giant hasn’t centralized all its free offerings into a single location, a move which would streamline access to the resources it is delivering. That’s why I included below a list with a consistent collection of free software products which can be grabbed free of charge, with the vast majority available through the Microsoft Download Center.
As far as I’m concerned the list needed to start with Windows client and server operating systems. In one way or another, packaged as ISO or VHD images, Microsoft is offering customers the chance to test drive, and even use, feature-complete versions of its platforms, again, completely free. In some cases, Microsoft is making it easier for customers to test drive a Windows release before buying, while in others it is actually offering the OS on top of an existing license.
However, the list doesn’t stop with Microsoft’s operating systems. The Redmond company is also providing free downloads of its “other” cash cow, the Office productivity suite, along with its development platform and tools, security solutions and additional offerings. Users will be able to find on the list both finalized products, as well as software that is still in development. As far as pre-release products are concerned, while the overall quality of the products is extremely high, customers should keep in mind that they might still run into issues. Read more
Free Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft has made Office SharePoint Designer 2007 available as a free download as of April 2, 2009. The Redmond company explained that customer feedback catalyzed the move, rather than alternative reasons such as the global economic crisis. By making SharePoint Designer 2007 a free download, the software giant is attempting to mirror the perspective that customers had of the tool, with the vast majority regarding the solution as a natural extension of SharePoint, rather than a standalone product.
“Today we are excited to share with you some news about SharePoint Designer 2007. Starting now (April 2, 2009), SharePoint Designer 2007 will be available as a free download! We want more of you customizing SharePoint and feel that this [is] a good way to put the tool in the hands of more people,” revealed a member of the SharePoint Designer Team. Read more
Microsoft Office 2007 IT Value Calculator
The Microsoft Office 2007 IT Value Calculator is a Microsoft Excel workbook that was designed and developed by Forrester Consulting to calculate the return on investment, costs, and benefits of an IT administrator can expect from deploying Microsoft Office 2007 within an corporate environment.
The financial impact of Office 2007 on an organization is calculated using formulas and macros that model imageForrester’s well-known Total Economic Impact (TEI) methodology, which systematically looks at the potential effects of technology investments across four dimensions: Read more
Seeker and Ye Shall Find
Have you ever lost a file or forgotten where you’ve put it on your hard drive? Of course you have, we’ve all done it, and if you’re lucky you may even have found it by searching through folders, or using the Windows Search facility. The one in Vista is actually quite good, but even that won’t be able help you if you can’t remember what the file was called.
Here’s something else to try, it’s called Seeker and in addition to searching for files by all or part of the name, it also looks inside files, for keywords or phrases. Again it’s something Windows can do, but this search tool is fast, very fast in fact, thanks to a powerful algorithm and an unusually flexible range of search criteria. Read more
Rooting Out Rootkits
We’ve spoken about Rootkits before, they’re nasty little pieces of malware that can open up your PC to hackers, but are also really difficult to detect and eliminate because they hide inside legitimate applications and files. McAfee, the antivirus people have come up with a new Rootkit removal tool, called Rootkit Detective. It’s still in its prerelease beta version but it seems stable enough and compared with other Rootkit removal tools we’ve tried, it’s blindingly fast. Although it didn’t find any infections on our office PCs it did flag up a few files, belonging to uninstalled applications, that shouldn’t be there, so it’s definitely worth a try, especially if you have any concerns about the security of your PC.
New Eee PC from May
As you may know I’m a huge fan of the tiny Linux-based Asus Eee PC and went out and bought one with my own money I hasten to add the minute they were available, last year. It’s been a very happy partnership and this cute little PC has been all over the place with me on numerous press and family jaunts, and it has never let me down. The Wi-Fi always latches on first time, it has all of the applications I need, 3 USB ports, an SD card slot and an MS compatible office suite. A few tweaks here and there, install the KDE desktop and you have a near perfect travelling companion. But now the Eee 900 hoves into view. Read more
Noisy Word Alternative
You might think that Microsoft Word is the only word processor in town but as regular visitors will know, this is simply not the case and there are some excellent free alternatives, including AbiWord and Open Office Writer, and they’re both Word compatible.
Here’s another one, called Atlantis, and it’s free to try for up to 30 days and it can open, edit and save files in Word’s ‘doc’ format. Read more
Watching the Old Time Spooks, Watching You…
Following on from last weeks excitement, when the Americans managed to blow up one of their dud spy satellites, you might like to know that the shadowy organisation behind these aerial snoopers has come out of the closet, just a little way…
The NRO or National Reconnaissance Office has its own web site and is publishing some of its satellite imagery. Read more
ZoHo Online Office
Have you seen the price of a decent office suite? Why bother when you can get everything you want for free, and much more besides. ZoHo is the latest online office suite to hit the headlines and this one really piles it on thick with a very well specified word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, Wiki tool, note taker, groupware mail client, project management program, CRM (Customer Relations Management) software, web conferencing, online database, organiser and chat facility. There’s also a website monitor, viewer and lots more besides and it’s all free.
Tell Word What To Do
Quite literally, this freeware utility, called Natural Word, lets you take command of Word with simple typed commands. For example, rather than hunt around the menus if you want to increase the size of a word or change the colour simply highlight the word or characters and type ‘make 12pt’, or ‘make blue’. There’s no need to memorize the commands, Natural Word will try to understand what you want. Read more
