XL2002 upgrade vs. 2000 - reporting my initial experience

[Gates Is Antichrist]

Overall, I'm not keen at all on 2002 EXCEPT to save a file gone corrupt in 2000. I have then saved it off, and continued merrily with the file in 2000.

Most blatant de-improvements in 2002:
It frequently hangs the O.S. (Win2K); it is the _only_ app. that has hung Win2K, in my or my circle's experience. The hangs were mainly from (A) as soon as I clicked on manual calculation; (B) while counting off a print (page x of y in the grey box). At least the files weren't irreparably damaged. Hanging's not as bad as file corruption, but still very bad. I'm talking CPU Reset bad (hope you didn't have unsaved work in other apps!).

2002 has an extremely annoying tendency to cover 1/4th of your screen with paste choices, simply because you put something in your copy buffer (i.e. you copied a cell or a range). I'd wager that very close to 100% of all pastes, for all users in all apps, are from the most recent copy; why in the world is this feature inflicted on everyone by default? Trust me, this is FAR worse than the paper clip twerp. (Sure, I'd be happy to hear where you can override it, because in classic fashion, the disable option was not intuitively apparent). Oh yes - if you have a multiline formula in the white formula bar, the pane's close "big X" is obscured, so you have to click an empty cell or something to get rid of the paste pane. Guess that one slipped by beta. And alpha.

A really vile new feature (it's a feature, right?) is that you CAN NOT CHANGE THE ACTIVE WINDOW MANUALLY WHILE A MACRO IS PAUSED. That may be a suitable design tactic to keep AOL users from hurting their little selves, but I can't imagine why 2002 did this. (And if it's overridable, once again, why is the default as it is...)

Of course, there are certain to be other substantial benefits in the 2002 upgrade, and to be fair, I probably just haven't worked to take advantage of them. In particular, by configuration you can avoid the macro warning which is quite pleasant. I'm sure there are other niceties; perhaps after a service release or two I would be persuaded to embrace it.

I'm not writing this to whine; but unfortunately sometimes your best guide to software choices is to weigh the negatives as well. Here I've given all of my impressions, good and bad; this comes from a heavy 2000 user.

Mark informs me that support techs maintain all versions to improve their support versatility; this may be something for you to consider ... perhaps until service packs roll around. I do know that our network department head was hesitant to do that, thinking you had to write over the old version (I believe Mark ).

Best of luck either way. I hope each of you make the most productive choice.

_________________
______________
Because he is.
This message was edited by Chris Davison on 2002-09-08 02:48

 

[stevebausch]

Yeah, I hated that Paste menu myself. Check out Tools/Options, there are tons of ways to personalize the environment, including turning off the paste menu, and shutting down the autorecovery/autosave feature (or at least dialing it back from every five minutes)

 

[Gates Is Antichrist]

Thanks, Steve.

D.A. me - this thread should say "XL2002 upgrade vs. 2000" - doh!

 

[Chris Davison]

On 2002-09-07 21:14, Gates Is Antichrist wrote:
Thanks, Steve.

D.A. me - this thread should say "XL2002 upgrade vs. 2000" - doh!

....fixed....

 

[XL-Dennis]

Hi,

I'm sure there are other niceties; perhaps after a service release or two I would be persuaded to embrace it.

Every new version takes some time before we fully understand the changes and take the benefit of them

Except for all the "whistles & bells" MS tend to build in there are some very good features:

- A faster calculation engine.
- Extended and more flexible way of protection (Although it´s still very weak).
- Building COM Add-in that can handle UDF.
- Formula auditing, with Watch Window and Evaluate formula.
- Increase the size of file.

The major drawback is that MS still refuse to expand the number of rows and columns avialable in the spreadsheets.

This is surprising because the OWC (Office Web Component)-Spreadsheet has a limitation of approx 241.000 rows and 18.000 columns....

BTW, I recommend You to install following Service packs:

SP-1
http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/oxpsp1.aspx

SP-2
http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/oxpsp2.aspx

With the installation of these SP You will have the best version of XL so far

With kind regards,
Dennis

 

[Gates Is Antichrist]

Thank you kindly, Chris.

Thank you Dennis for a useful post. Interestingly, I nearly semi-disregarded you, as the SP-2 description (thanks also for taking the trouble to past in the links) said it is a superset of SP-1; then I got to the (Bold and multicolored, lol) "Important Prior to installing Office XP SP2, you must install Office XP Service Pack 1 (SP1)."

Nice to know that at least one of the two of us knows which end goes up - ROFL!

 

[Gates Is Antichrist]

As to the 256 limit: while far be it for me to defend the Evil One and his coven of prima donna better-than-thou developers, I have to say I see their point on this one.

Let's say you embarked on a multiyear application development with tons of developers and literally millions of lines of code. And you told them: "There is one rule: everything is 256 based. Everything, everything you do must be addressable from an 8 bit byte." And on and on, relying on the magical 2^8th symmetry. "And 65536 shalt also be inviolate, and you can code any tricks you want under its umbrella protection."

I can imagine all sorts of neat shortcuts and optimizations that developers could take, given that ironclad 256 and 65536 barrier to rely upon. Now, let's say an edict came down, that 256 now becomes 65536 and 65536 now becomes a meg. Then re-engineering millions of lines of code ... fuh-get about it!

Ergo, I understand how *other* apps. can exceed the Excel boundaries, and why Excel itself stays there.

I hereby bestow myself with massive points, to be used at my next bashing of the Evil one!

 

[XL-Dennis]

Gates Is Antichrist,

Long time since I saw the expression ROFL :wink:
(=Rolling onthe floor laughing loud)

I can accept to have "only" 65536 rows, however with only 256 columns is difficult to
- transpose rows exceeding 256
- import/export larger amount of statistic data

OK, we can use OLAP Cube, VBA and other tools to mix with the data but it´s not always possible.

My solution?
Quattro Pro which has a limitation of 18.000 column

All the best from Östersund - very late,
Dennis

 

[Gates Is Antichrist]

One last off-thread reply for me (not to discourage anyone else ) - please rethread if I should respond.

>I can accept to have "only" 65536 rows, >however with only 256 columns is difficult to
>- transpose rows exceeding 256
>- import/export larger amount of statistic data

I hear you. I am in very long term programming, and the human lifespan in months exceeds 1200 columns In monthly financial calculations I am jammed at 20 years frequently, so have to clumsily workaround.

But BION I don't hold that limit against Microsoft.

In fact, I hope they don't even treat the idea seriously. Imagine the foaming, frothing mouths in the MS Slow and Bloat Department, at the potential to release a one gig executable that takes 45 seconds to load on a screaming machine (sorry, 1:30 for you still working on P3's)! And after one year - even 2 or 3 - getting to tell those "behind the times" that the 65535 line product is not longer supported! Sarcasm aside, _all_ of this is the MS reality.

>My solution?
>Quattro Pro which has [far more]

I have heard many very smart people, who would regard that as wise. However I, as many, are lamentably bound to the Microsoft empire. Albeit sometimes kicking and screaming, gotta go with the flow.