Is it time to change?

[thefrasers]

(Not sure if this is the right board please let me know if I should switch).

I notice on the most recent podcast that Mr Jelen himself has switched to Excel 2007. I have been happily crunching away with XP (02) for some time now and had no particular desire to change - but I am also an avid reader/watcher of the various Excel resources on the Internet (particularly Mr Excel related) and if they are switching to 2007 then it might be time for me to change too.

I'm sure much of this has been discussed before (though I can't find it using the search functionality) but as someone who has a bunch of relatively straightforward macros from a personal workbook plugged into a customised Toolbar, and as a user of a relatively trivial add-in involving simple UDFs and VBA modules, will a move from XP to 07 be onerous? Is it now time to change?

Shall I emerge from the cave?

Peter

 

[Macropod]

Hi Peter,

Unless you need the new features of Excel '07, there's really no need to change. For most users and most situations, the older versions do everything one might need.

Cheers

 

[RoryA]

You can download a trial and give it a go if you like - it will at least give you a chance to see how well (or otherwise!) you get on with the new interface.

 

[Yard]

I may be in the minority here, but we're actually considering a move BACK to 2003.

The number of spreadsheet crashes, spurious network links and unexpected behaviours has increased markedly since the move to 2007 in mid-2008. The new features have been great to use, but it looks like the stability and reliability are too high a price to pay.

 

[RoryA]

You might be in the minority, but you are certainly not alone! I've seen a number of posts about this and I know some of the MVPs are less than impressed with many aspects of 2007. Hopefully Office 14 will be better!!

 

[Yard]

Thanks Rory - makes me feel slightly better about looking stupid in front of internal customers when spreadsheets "just don't work"!!

Might be going off-topic here, but what's the process through which Microsoft makes improvements/changes to current and future versions of Excel? Have read a lot about the things (even small things) which people believe Microsoft should have included, on top of the "please just let it work without crashing" desire. How will these demands be met by Office 14?

 

[RoryA]

People submit 'wish lists' to MS all the time. Part of the reason for the change to the UI in 2007 was the fact that something like 95% of the requests were for features that already existed, but people couldn't find them!
As far as I know, the process is a pretty standard development one - there's a lot of internal testing, then an alpha version is created and tested (internally only, I think) then the first beta is made available to tens of thousands of people for testing. That leads to lots of fixes/improvements and the creation of beta 2 that goes to a wider audience for further tests, until you end up with a release candidate version available for more testing - but only for bug fixes, not feature changes. Then eventually you end up with the "finished" article. (I think all that is common knowledge so I didn't violate my NDA!)

 

[Yard]

I guess you can't please everybody all the time, but I know the biggest problem for most people here having upgraded is finding the features in the new UI!!!

So how do MS whittle down the wishlists? Do the MVPs have an input, given the amount of user issues/questions you see out and about on the forums?

Still feels a bit like they spend a bit too much time creating some fancy things which look good (trying to keep up with Apple?), and not enough time making sure they work fully and making sure the application itself is rock solid.

I'm sure the debate has been had a million times so I won't go on, I was just interested in who has an input in these matters!

Cheers

 

[RoryA]

yeah, we do - on an ongoing basis and at the summits (I believe).
I'm definitely not getting involved in a Microsoft vs Apple debate... (I like being an MVP, thanks!)

 

[Greg Truby]

Peter,

To answer your question you need to ask some questions. The principle question is how widely will you be sharing your workbooks? Adoption of Excel 2007 has been slow (my company still has not upgraded). So even though I have wheedled a copy of Excel 2007 for my work computer (took me over a year to do that), I still end up having to save everything in Excel 2003 before I can share.

While your customized stuff will probably work okay in 2007, it will probably look a bit screwed up. Any custom menus items as well as all custom toolbar buttons end up getting dumped in a special "add-ins" tab. And customizing under RibbonX is a royal PITA.

Having said all that, I would tell you that if you have a chance to upgrade, do it - BUT only if you can keep 2003 on your machine. There are a lot of really cool things in 2007. Plus you are gonna hafta learn some time...

But you will find that there are some things that were easier under 2003. If you're a mouseketeer, you'll find 2007 hard at first because you'll have to look for everything. I'm a hardcore keyboarder and all of the keyboard-based command sequences still work. Can't figure out how to record a macro in 2007? Just hit Alt+T,M,R and even if you don't have the developer tab showing and didn't spot the record macro button in the status bar, you still start recording a macro.

In short, for a wet-behind-the-ears college grad that don't know nothin' else and has no XL2003 legacy a 2007-only work environment would work. For just about anyone else, I would say start as soon as you can, but plan on keeping 2003 for a good while. So the second question is if you can keep 2003? If, (I can't imagine why) you couldn't keep 2003, then I would say to drag your feet!

HTH