Yesterday we were alerted to an issue in Excel 2007 (and Excel Services 2007) involving calculation of numbers around 65,535. The Excel team would like to provide a description of the issue and explain what we’re doing about it.

Background
Yesterday evening we were alerted to an issue in Excel 2007 (and Excel Services 2007) involving calculation of numbers around 65,535. The first example that we heard about was =77.1*850, but it became clear from our testing as well as additional reports that this was just one instance where Excel 2007 would return a value of 100,000 instead of 65,535. The majority of these additional reports were focused on multiplication (ex. =5.1*12850; =10.2*6425; =20.4*3212.5 ), but our testing showed that this really didn’t have anything do to with multiplication - it manifested itself with many but not all calculations in Excel that should have resulted in 65,535 (=65535*1 and =16383.75*4 worked for instance). Further testing showed a similar phenomenon with 65,536 as well. This issue only exists in Excel 2007, not previous versions.

The Problem
This issue was introduced when we were making changes to the Excel calculation logic in the Office 2007 time frame. Specifically, Excel…

Microsoft 2007 Office system provides many security improvements over its predecessors, including digital document signing. By digitally signing a document, you can confirm that you are the originator of the document and help prove that the document has not changed since the time you signed it. This white paper introduces the reader to digital signatures: what they are and how to use them.

You can digitally sign a document for many of the same reasons you might place a handwritten signature on a paper document. A digital signature is used to help authenticate the identity of the creator of (authenticate: The process of verifying that people and products are who and what they claim to be. For example, confirming the source and integrity of a software publisher’s code by verifying the digital signature used to sign the code.) digital information — such as documents, e-mail messages, and macros — by using cryptographic algorithms.

Digital signatures are based on digital certificates. Digital certificates are verifiers of identity issued by a trusted third party, called a certification authority or CA. This works similarly to the use of standard identity documents in the non-electronic world. For example, a trusted third party such as a government

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Sometimes what customers want is not always what customers get. Take “Scout” for example, a little piece of Microsoft Research ingenuity that really helps users with the new Office 2007 “Fluent” interface. As religious as I am about the Ribbon and contextual interface, I suffer just as much knowing a feature exists somewhere in the application that I just can’t find in the Ribbon. I mean how do I know what context it’s in? And I’m almost certain I’m not the only one suffering.

Developed and distributed internally at Microsoft as a proof-of-concept, “Scout” solves the problem by offering a simple and straight-forwarding search solution. You basically type the command you are thinking of, and you’ll be presented a list of matching command buttons. And unlike commands in the Ribbon which are only a select few picked by someone else who thought might be relevant, this search goes deep into the application to find anything and everything.

Even though it was highly favored by Microsoft employees, Scout was never released to the public. Chris Capossela, corporate VP for Microsoft’s business division argued Scout was “superfluous…

As Microsoft released Microsoft Office 2007 SP1 Technical Preview to all members of the Microsoft Office Product Evaluation TAP 3 days ago, it’s time to take look at what this update contains.

Office 2007 has version number 12.0.6017.5000, whereas this release is 12.0.6207.1000.

This relase is clocked in at 214MB and setup process consists of 4 steps;

Snapshot of the temporary files created;

About window;

All previous updates installed are removed and only SP1 is left as installed update in the Program and Features overview. All updates up to build time is included.

Note that it’s not possible to uninstall this version SP1 after installation;

Before;

After;