OneNote Beta 2 Technical Refresh now available

Just a quick note to let you all know that if you are using beta 2 of OneNote, you can download the new tech refresh here. Note that this is *not* a single click update. Read the instructions on the page before installing or you will regret it.

This refresh represents about 4 months of bug fixing and stabilization, and is near-final code. You *really* should get it if you are running beta 2 already on Windows XP. You more or less *must* get the update if you are moving to Vista RC1. Installation should be painless (but follow the instructions!). It is a patch that runs and then you just keep working with no loss of data or anything to migrate. 

You'll get asked to install the updated Windows Desktop search component if you want to keep using search-related features in OneNote. The new WDS version released about 2 weeks ago is a huge improvement over the beta version that OneNote beta 2 used - you will find the most annoying issues are gone, including the fact that WDS 3.0 now includes its UI again (much like WDS 2.6) so you can search your desktop too!

Please note that B2TR is only available as a (free, I think) *patch*. That means you need to already have the matching 2007 Office beta 2 product to install it. (e.g. if you have only beta 2 of OneNote, you can patch just that. But you need to patch all the beta 2 products you have installed - B2 and B2TR 2007 products cannot coexist)

Also, since there are now roughly 7 zillion beta 2 users, the powers that be decided a few weeks ago to start recovering the cost of supporting the petabytes of downloads by charging new beta 2 users $1.50 per download. This isn't much (half a latte) but it is not zero so be aware of that. They do not make the price clear until several screens through the registration process. If you are not an existing Beta 2 user and can't spring the $1.50, you need to wait for the final release.

Final release is still scheduled for the fall (for customers who just get the CD/DVD or access to downloads such as corporations and institutions) with "retail availability" in early 2007 (i.e. in boxes in stores)

As far as new features in beta 2TR, there are a few, such as the ability to see changes in pages made by time or whether you've read them or not, and the blogging integration with Word 2007 more or less works out of the box. I will provide more details when I find out where they are listed (remember I've been away... and for me its hard to remember what beta 2 looked like)

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Still disappointed that Windows Mobile 2003 SE on PPC is not supported.
  
  Please include!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Chris,
  
  Must have "2007 Office beta"?? What if we only have the OneNote beta? Are we stuck?
  
  Tom Devlin
  tdevlin944@gmail.com

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Not going to happen this release I am afraid. Hey, that team really pulled and got WM5 for PPC in there - they deserve some credit for responding to the feedback...

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Tom, sorry I wasn't clear. OneNote 2007 beta 2 refresh is available as one of the downloads when you follow the link if you only have OneNote beta 2. You only need to have the beta 2 of the products that you want to patch. I'll fix the post.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Hi Chris,
  Thanks overall for your ON blog - it's been very helpful to me as a user.
  
  Now, about this post, you stress following the instructions, but I don't see much in the way of special instructions on the download page. Am I missing something? I didn't see any special instructions (aside from ways to fix a bad install) on the Microsoft install page you linked to.
  
  I looked around and found Patrick Schmid's post on Usenet(http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.onenote/browse_thread/thread/df75d37728196a9a/f6040e011022359c) that had some detail about changes to the way syncing works, but that's it. (And I'm not clear if some of the steps he detailed were just if you were using Offline Files, or should be followed for anyone who's using the Sync function (which I am!)
  
  Can you provide a link to the detailed instructions? Your warning "or you will regret it" stopped me in my tracks until I'm sure I have the right info.
  
  Thanks!

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  >>>Final release is still scheduled for the fall ..
  Just BTW, to clear up where the centre of the universe isn't, I believe you mean to say
  >>>Final release is still scheduled for the NORTHERN fall [or Autumn] ..
  We're entering Spring on the 21st....

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  that's fine

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  How can I check that B2TR is installed on my PC?
  Renger

• Anonymous
  September 15, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 18, 2006
  This latest version seems to clear up most of the earlier problems in Beta 2 (especially the searching!), but I notice that there is still one odd bug: when I open the tags summary panel, every tagged item is listed twice. I assume that you folks are aware of this peculiar behavior and will take care of it in the final version?

• Anonymous
  September 18, 2006
  Bill: yes, that one is fixed for the final release (fix went in after the B2TR build was snapped)

• Anonymous
  September 19, 2006
  Chris: is there actually a separate download for the OneNote B2TR? Can't seem to find it and am faced with the full 400+MB Office download. A link would be useful
  
  Thanks

• Anonymous
  September 20, 2006
  grumpy: I checked and unfortunately you are correct that there is just the single patch which updates all the beta 2 office 2007 apps to B2TR. Most people run the whole set of apps in beta but I agree having the other single patches would be useful.

• Anonymous
  September 20, 2006
  Glad you have fixed search! Though I don't seem to be able to use WDS 3 to search onenote outside of onenote, even with the ifilter installed and configured.
  
  Also glad you have tweaked full screen mode, especially the issue that you created a sidenote you couldn't maximise it.
  
  One thing though, how come you didn't borrow Word et al's zoom slider? For a tabletcentric app it would make sense.

• Anonymous
  September 21, 2006
  B2Tr looks good and indeed lovely to have the search back
  but I also have a problem with the synchronisation altough my onenote folder is not on an offline folder (just on C drive) I do use offline folders for "My Documents".
  We also a notebook on a fileserver and when I open this one B2TR activates offline folders for that location too. I loose the more flexible ON sync and when I log off/on I see a second offline folder being synced (next to "My Documents" sync).
  This is different behaviour than the previous beta.
  I read Peter Smidts comment ((http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.onenote/browse_thread/thread/df75d37728196a9a/f6040e011022359c))
  on ON and offline folders but that discussed only the problem when your notebook is IN the offline folder.
  How is it possible to both have offline folders for one folder and ON sync for the notebooks (in another folder) ?
  Please don't tell me that you can only have one XOR the other :-)
  

• Anonymous
  September 21, 2006
  I ran the patch and it did not work for me. I think I made the mistake and ran my diskcleaner while the file was up slowly updating. I noticed you are not supposed to run it.
  Is there a separate link for all the Microsoft Office Beta 2?

• Anonymous
  September 21, 2006
  Charles (and others with support issues). I recommend you use the forums here as there are more knowledgable and responsive people there...
  
  http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.onenote&lang=en&cr=US

• Anonymous
  September 23, 2006
  Help! All work I did to customize the toolbars, and create additional toolbars was overritten by the Refresh!  
  
  Can I get them back by restoring the Toolbars.dat and/or Preferences.dat file(s) -- or will this wreak havoc with the refreshed version?
  
  Lee

• Anonymous
  September 24, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 24, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 25, 2006
  Lee: the customizations can't be carried forward, as the menus and toolbars have been reorganized since b2, so Onenote throws away customizations. Sorry. BTW upgrading to final from b2tr will also throw away customizations.
  
  Rob, there is just the one single patch - it contains the patch to onenote. For the ink issues the user group is the best place.

• Anonymous
  September 26, 2006
  Ah, Chris, so many things improved in the B2TR.  Nicely done.
  
  But, unfortunately, my "killer bug" remains.  I would like to use a shared notebook via WebDAV over HTTPS, with the website using basic authentication.  
  
  In B2, it wasn't even close.  It seems better now, but I still cannot get the files.  Sync says that the notebook is "not connected".  I've also seen messages saying that the notebook needs a password.
  
  So is this a bug report or a feature request?  :)
  
  - Jeff
  

• Anonymous
  September 26, 2006
  Jeffrey: One thing we're finding out about WebDAV is that most implementations of it are incomplete. OneNote needs to be able to do things like verify a file exists, verify directories exist, change directories, take temporary write locks on files, verify changed date/time on files, and so on. Many WebDAV servers are expecting on very basic usage, such as file upload/download.
  
  Something you can try on your end would be to enable directory browsing on the site if that isn't already enabled. You can also email me directly [chrispr(at)microsoft.com]with details of your site and we can try to test against it if you let us.

• Anonymous
  September 28, 2006
  Chris,
  
  Turns out my ink-bug was hardware-related.  I think my stylus is going bad, since I can turn the stylus around and it works OK ... For some reason, it just liked to happen primarily with OneNote.
  
  I asked for the bug to be closed, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how OneNote will stand up to a College Senior's schedule!  :)

• Anonymous
  September 29, 2006
  Regarding the inking issues, which user group do you recommend? My stylus seems to have the most problems in One Note particularly after the systems goes into stand-by or hybernate mode.  I've placed and order for a new stylus, and hopefully that will solve the problem, but if there configuration issues that I can try, that'd be great.  I have a Gateway tablet and have read about some of the issues with their inking technology - so I'm hoping that my issues can be resolved.  Love the blog.  

• Anonymous
  September 29, 2006
  Renee, if the problems happen outside of OneNote (especially if it is closed, then you should post in the tablet PC group. If they are confined to OneNote or when OneNote is running, try the OneNote group.

• Anonymous
  October 05, 2006
  I'd love to get B2TR, but after uninstalling Beta 2 to troubleshoot a problem I cannot reinstall it on my notebook and can't seem to find any help. The same file loads OK on my desktop PC, where I don't really need it. The installer log indicates an error as follows: Error: Failed to create download: cannot get or load download from the given download ID "{30120000-00A1-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}-C". Error code: 0x80070002 HResult: 0x80070002. Any ideas? I really hate not being able to continue evaluating this. Thanks for any help and for the blog.

• Anonymous
  October 05, 2006
  New discovery. When I compared the setup log on my desktop (good install) to that on my notebook (won't install), I found that the log never indicates loading the metadata from OneNote.en-usOneNoteMUI.xml or from OneNote.WWOneNoteWW.xml. So I went looking for these directories in my TempOWPxxx.tmp folder and found them missing. That folder contains Office.en-us and the Proof.xml files. It also contains the Admin folder. But that's it. I searched for the missing folders and files thinking the setup script put them in the wrong place, but found nothing.

• Anonymous
  October 11, 2006
  Chris:  I still haven't seen (or haven't found) any description of what's been changed/improved between ON 2003 and ON 2007.  Is anything like this available?

• Anonymous
  October 11, 2006
  Hal, please post support questions in the Onneote newsgroup! The people there are far more knowledgeable than I am. Rnadall. This post is sort of a guide:http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley/archive/2005/11/16/493772.aspx It isn't an exhaustive list - more like a greatest hits.

• Anonymous
  October 16, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  October 22, 2006
  We enjoy our XP computer ver much! When do you think they'll make a computer model to replace XP? Are they working on it? ~The Mustache Orchestra

• Anonymous
  October 24, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  October 24, 2006
  Hmmm...the upgrade needs 2GB + .5GB for the file itself.... My laptop doesn't have that much space, do you have any other ideas on how I can get the patch on?  Should I just u-install and re-install?

• Anonymous
  October 27, 2006
  I got the Office 2007 Beta 2 but how the heck do I install ONLY onenote, and nothing else? There aren't five separate disks like in the 2003 retail version, and when I extract the cabs it doesn't seem to like it. I know I could (theoretically) install the suite and then uninstall what I don't want, but my entire hard drive is 6 gigs -- and with those MS space limits built into the install, it won't let me. . Besides which who needs the bloatware? I'm perfectly happy with my slimmed down, custom version of Office 2003 hacked to 80 megs for the full suite, 30 if I only run Word and Excel. But I would really like to try the new OneNote. It appears the 2007 version adds some "info select" like functionality that I reallly need. Any ideas, anybody? Please, email me direct at amysemail @ gmail.com Many thanks!

• Anonymous
  November 02, 2006
  Is the Tech Refresh for OneNote closed?  I can't find it on the website.

• Anonymous
  November 07, 2006
  Is it okay to download 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh, if I am using Microsoft Office 2003 and OneNote 2007? Will it cause any conflict with my Office 2003 Suite?