Beta 2 Technical Refresh Available Now

This morning, the Beta 2 Technical Refresh of the 2007 Microsoft Office system became available for download.

You can download it now from the Microsoft Download Center.

(The download link above is the main download link. You also view the list of all available Beta 2 Technical Refresh updates for client and server by clicking the Beta 2 Technical Refresh link on this page.)

You must have Beta 2 installed in order to patch it to Beta 2 Technical Refresh, so don't uninstall Beta 2.

Why a patch instead of a full release? Primarily because we need to test the patching technology broadly, and this is a great chance to make sure it works well. Patching is the way we release updates to Office after it ships, so making sure it works well is an important part of the beta process.

Please also consider downloading the Send a Smile Feedback Tool to tell us what you think about Office 2007. If you already had it installed from Beta 2, you can continue to use it in B2TR.

In my post yesterday, I posted a list of the most substantive changes to the user interface in the new build. Consider this by no means a full list of changes in B2TR—just those in the UI.

I've also posted a list of Ribbon Control IDs for use with B2TR for RibbonX developers. These should also show up on MSDN sometime in the next few weeks. It's a 1.3 MB download (.zip file) if you need to grab it now.

Note: If you're having trouble installing the patch, try following the instructions in this article.

Note 2: Patrick Schmid is keeping a great log of solutions to issues people are encountering with B2TR.

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  How exciting!!! I am installing as 'we' speak. :-)
  
  Apropos patching--I always thought patching was used to reduce the size of downloads. Yet the B2TR download is 495 MB. I take it possible future service packs will be smaller?

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  The patch is almost the same size as the original distribution. How strange!

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Francis, Ali:
  
  It's so big because nearly every file in Office changed between Beta 2 and B2TR.
  
  The average update patch contains a few lines of updated code... not five months of work by hundreds of developers! :)

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  The patching is broken: it set Outlook to be the default mail client and created icons everywhere (again!).
  
  Actually, running Outlook as a non-admin user also seems to register the mailto protocol under  HKCUSoftwareClasses instead of HKLMSC, which is especially annoying since the other applications don't think to change that (not OE, not Thunderbird, not Set Program Access and Defaults...). It's so frustrating.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Hi Jensen -
  
  B2TR works for me.  Quick question:  I noticed that in the outlook message compose window, the Send button has moved off the ribbon and is now left of the addressing section of the message.  Can you share the thinking on that change?  My spinal macros have trained me that actions such as "Reply", "Forward", "Accept Meeting", etc. are on the top-left of the Ribbon.  I find myself clicking on the greyed out "Paste" button and then saying, "Shoot, I need to aim lower - they moved the Send button"
  
  Thanks!

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  I'm new to the Office beta program.  I got the Beta 2 download, and the B2TR download.  I want to install on Vista RC1.  
  
  Should I just install B2, then immediately (without trying anything out, etc.) install B2TR?  I've heard the B2 and Vista RC1 don't get along, but will it at least install enough to get the B2TR on there?
  
  Thanks!
  

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Jeff,
  
  I'll post about this soon.  Very briefly: it's so that you can send regardless of what tab you're on or if the Ribbon is minimized or not.
  
  After two days or so, you'll be totally used to it and glad it's there.  (That seems to be how long it took for me to get used to the change.)
  
  In the final product, the vast majority of people won't have ever used Beta 2, so won't have the transition period.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Folks:
  
  If the patch seems to have failed, try following the instructions here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923718

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  I am keeping a list of problems with fixes for B2TR at http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/14/43. You should read this post BEFORE installing B2TR, as there are some critical issues involving files created in Beta 2.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Will we be seeing full Vista type icons for the file types in the final release? By this I mean that the file type do not display larger than 48x48 icons.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  well, i'm not too happy about the upgrade installation path of beta 2. it sees i have o2k3 installed and suggests upgrade. to me, upgrade means upgrade, not install everything, including apps i never had installed.
  
  i never had outlook installed, and i never want outlook installed, but an upgrade itnstalled it.
  
  this is wrong.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  and one other thing, while i'm at it. i thought i read in this blog, or it could have been the excel blog, that in this day and age all dialogs should be resizeable. well, what happened to the change dialog in the add remove features? doesn't appear to be resizeable to me.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Every since installing the B2TR, Office Word 2007 will not open any files of any type!!
  
  I always get....
  
  'The file Example.txt is not available.'
  
  With the filename being whatever I try and open. Even saving a new file of type .txt cannot be opened again using Word. I have tried rebooting and it makes no different.
  
  Environment: XP SP2
  
  Any ideas?

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  I had the same problem as Phil above with Word not opening. That was a scary problem to have. But I used the Method 2 link above and I can use Word fine.
  
  Thanks,
  
  John

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Hi Jensen
  
  Downloaded it as soon as it was released and am thrilled about the new stuff - and it is a more stable animal also.
  
  Danes can read my first impressions on my blog - just follow the link.
  

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Patrick Schmid,
  
  Thanks for the information, I disabled the Office Add-In for Norton 2005 and after a reboot everything works fine again. Thanks for the speedy response.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  PingBack from http://www.arturogoga.com/2006/09/15/office-2007-beta-2-technical-refresh/

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  If you are running Office 2007 Beta, then be sure to download the beta 2 refresh that was released today.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Office 2007 Beta 2 TR works fine on my pc. Installation took some time but in the end it works until BCM (Business Contact Manager) the Old one doesn't work neither did Outlook. Try to deinstall the old BCM.
  
  Is there a BCM Beta 2 TR anywhere? If one had the link it would be very nice. I like the tool and it works really fine in the Original Beta2.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Due to my personell research about Beta 2 Technical Refresh i found out a search string for maybe all Beta2 TR included my missed BCM ;)
  so here it is:
  
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?pocId=9&freetext=office%202007%20technical%20refresh&DisplayLang=en
  
  have a nice try and certainly day ;)

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Alas, I am disappointed with the patch. It did not fix the errors I was getting with Outlook.
  
  Everything was running fine for a while, then outlook started crashing as soon as I would open it. I had hoped wiping it off and re-installing it would sort the problem. It did not. So I went back to 2003.
  
  Even after clean installing the beta2 and TR outlook still throws an immediate error. sigh guess I'll wait for RC1 :)

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2006
  Jensen, you noted yesterday that "A full list of new features and improvements to the entire product (not just the user interface) will be available along with the download tomorrow."
  
  Will you post that soon? Keenly interested to learn about all the features that have been updated (both UI and functional).
  
  Thanks in advance...:]

• Anonymous
  September 15, 2006
  Critter,
  does it crash if you open it with Start, Run, "outlook /safe"?

• Anonymous
  September 15, 2006
  >>I've also posted a list of Ribbon Control IDs for use with B2TR for RibbonX developers.
  
  77 duplicates in the Excel list, Jensen (excluding the Ordering column of course).  Not that I'm not grateful for this!

• Anonymous
  September 15, 2006
  Powerpoint can't read...
  Word can't read...
  ... can't read...
  
  "The presentation cannot be opened. Your antivirus program may prevent you from opening the presentation. To fix this problem, make sure your antivirus program is current and working correctly. If the problem persists and the presentation is from someone that you trust, turn off your antivirus program, and then try to open the presentation again. If you do this, make sure you turn on your antivirus program again after you open the presentation."
  
  I have Norton Antivirus.
  
  I hate antivirus!!!

• Anonymous
  September 15, 2006
  Thanks to Microsoft for fixing the links problem in plain-text emails!  I was missing being able to click on links.

• Anonymous
  September 16, 2006
  "Why a patch instead of a full release? Primarily because we need to test the patching technology broadly, and this is a great chance to make sure it works well."
  
  Hang on ... what do you mean "test the patching technology"?
  
  Isn't the patching technology part of Windows Installer? If so, why aren't the Windows Installer team testing the patching technology? If not, does this mean that the Office team have rolled their own version of an existing MS technology (again!)?
  

• Anonymous
  September 16, 2006
  Adam,
  
  Windows Installer is just the underlying technology. MS can easily make mistakes when using that technology. Hence they need to test it. None of us wants something going wrong with Office 2007 Service Packs.

• Anonymous
  September 16, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 16, 2006
  Hi Jensen,
  I actually liked my electrocuted printer :) Any chance the icon can be available in the final product as alternative to the one that is there now?

• Anonymous
  September 17, 2006
  Great work!
  [url=http://zpccnvml.com/hrpc/wugu.html]My homepage[/url] | [url=http://gavnrxnp.com/umxq/bkwp.html]Cool site[/url]

• Anonymous
  September 17, 2006
  Thank you!
  <a href="http://zpccnvml.com/hrpc/wugu.html">My homepage</a> | <a href="http://jgzjryhk.com/iuwi/rbst.html">Please visit</a>

• Anonymous
  September 17, 2006
  Thank you!
  http://zpccnvml.com/hrpc/wugu.html | http://akwqqxxh.com/ulrq/xksw.html

• Anonymous
  September 17, 2006
  "Actually, running Outlook as a non-admin user also seems to register the mailto protocol under  HKCUSoftwareClasses instead of HKLMSC, which is especially annoying since the other applications don't think to change that (not OE, not Thunderbird, not Set Program Access and Defaults...). It's so frustrating. "
  
  James, that's the absolutely correct behavior for a non-admin user.  HKCR is a merger of HKLMSC and HKCUSC.  If the HKCU key exists, then the write to HKCR goes to HKCU, otherwise it goes to HKLM.  So, once Office writes to HKCU, then the other programs that write to HCKR will write there too.  If they're writing to HKLM directly, then they're broken.
  

• Anonymous
  September 18, 2006
  Great patch! Not for its Guinness Book size <g>, but because it is so much stable, until now I didn’t experience any GPF. Congratulations!
  
  Unfortunately, maybe fortunately for others, the installation didn’t restore default options. Now I can’t remember what is default or customized. It would be best if there is a default button in each dialog to restore shipped options.

• Anonymous
  September 18, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 18, 2006
  PingBack from http://www.windowsobserver.com/2006/09/18/in-and-around-the-net-going-to-sea-edition/

• Anonymous
  September 18, 2006
  The download page seems to have been removed?
  
  "We’re sorry, but there is no Microsoft.com Web page that matches your entry."

• Anonymous
  September 20, 2006
  PingBack from http://www.waterfallweb.net/archives/2006/01/quick-links-for-21-september/

• Anonymous
  October 01, 2006
  Dear Jeff,
  
  Disaster of disaters. I loaded the Tech refresh and now am unable to open any of my office document files in any suite(  error, Files not available ) although all the office beta programs work individualy. What have I done incorrectly?
  

• Anonymous
  October 01, 2006
  Hastings: follow the steps under "file not found" on my b2tr page at http://pschmid.net
  
  Patrick

• Anonymous
  October 02, 2006
  Teried the steps  http://pschmid.net but alas it does not work for me -- Does not open any file old or new

• Anonymous
  October 06, 2006
  Doesn't work still. I uninstalled Norton. On top of that I can't open half my old Powerpoint files.

• Anonymous
  October 11, 2006
  I am having the same problem too.  Unable to open old files in word, excel, etc

• Anonymous
  October 12, 2006
  I am having a really horrible time trying to get the Beta 2 Technical Refresh to install.I have saved it to disk and have tried Patrick Schmids few ideas and they dont work.I have installed Vista Rc 1 and have the Microsoft Office Pro-Plus 2007 and the trouble is with my Outlook and its the Beta 2 one.Can you help? Really I want to use all the features that are up to date and my Diagnostic test says Beta installation is out of date. I really dont know who to ask anymore,from the Office discussion forum I really havent seen any kind of solution, just people with a lot of troubles with the Refresh.

• Anonymous
  October 12, 2006
  PingBack from http://www.malcolmgin.com/msblog/?p=20

• Anonymous
  November 04, 2006
  WinXPSP2 with OfficeXP SP3 also installed. Install went well at first, but having problems with the NAV2006 Office Plug-in, which I now disabled. Had a few random crashes in Word & Excel. Then ran the Microsoft Office Diagnostics which threw up some errors in Setup Diagnostic — File corruption or altered file. Fixed successfuly & B2TR now runs ok. Looking forward to NAV2006 office plug-in update :) Everytime i click on the OfficeXP icons windows installer kicks in (at first asking for install disk, but then in later runs doesn't). Otehrwise behaves normally so i'mn assuming this is the expected behaviour. Thanks Steve

• Anonymous
  October 27, 2008
  PingBack from http://mstechnews.info/2008/10/the-office-2007-ui-bible/