In this training course, you will learn basic Word, Excel, and Outlook skills. You will learn how to create and manage Word documents, organize information in tables, perform calculations on data, create graphs and charts, organize your email Inbox, and manage email automatically.

Windows Vista

Microsoft, which is rushing to meet Vista deadlines of November for corporate customers and January 2007 for others, dubbed a accurate build of the operating system as Release Candidate 1 (RC1). Last week, the Redmond, Wash. developer made RC1 available to a small group of outside testers; this week, it posted the update to its download site for users of Vista Beta 2.

But analysts say Microsoft's doing more than rushing development, it's pushing the terminology into uncharted territory.

Joe Wilcox, an analyst with JupiterResearch, said that Microsoft's corrupted the term.

"'Release candidate' is a long-standing term, it has meaning behind it," said Wilcox. "The name says it all. This should be code that's ready to release." It's not, said Wilcox. And Microsoft told him so.

"I was told that Microsoft recognizes that it has plenty of work still to do on Windows Vista and that Release Candidate 1 is not a near-final version," Wilcox went on. "I was told that Microsoft's approach, perhaps, definition, of a release candidate had 'evolved.' I countered that Microsoft had changed the definition."

Michael Cherry of Kirkland, Wash.-based Directions on Microsoft agreed that Microsoft's misused 'release candidate.'

"They've completely messed up the vocabulary," he said. "What exactly is a pre-release candidate?" he asked, referring to the term Microsoft used last week to describe a publicly-available build of Vista that immediately preceded RC1. "What they released [as RC1] would in the old vocabulary be a Beta 3."

Cherry said he had installed RC1, but immediately had several bugs to report. "Someone like me shouldn't be submitting four new bugs on a build called 'release candidate,'" he said.

But does it matter, really matter, what Microsoft calls a preview Windows build?

Both analysts said it does.

"People are trying to evaluate whether [Microsoft] is going to make its dates or not. Analysts, the media, PC makers, software developers, businesses, consumers, everyone," said Wilcox. But if the two sides -- Microsoft on one, everyone else on the other -- aren't in sync, it leads to confusion, or worse, said Wilcox.

"Is this good enough to release, or does Microsoft need to make changes before it's ready?" he said. "Those are two very different starting points."

For his part, Wilcox isn't buying 'release candidate' for the version of Vista that Microsoft's pegged as RC1. "This is a work in progress, and I think that two release candidates will be necessary."

In turn, that means he's not as confident in Microsoft making the January release as he was before the Redmond, Wash. developer put the RC1 label on last week's build.

Neither is Cherry. "It isn't ready," he said flatly.

Nor is Microsoft fooling anyone by applying 'release candidate' to this build of Vista. "Watch the source here, who's calling this 'release candidate," Cherry said. "It's Microsoft. They're going to be overly optimistic to make it appear they'll make their dates."

This Microsoft Word beginner guide provides free & basic lessons, tutorials & fundamentals for learning MS Office Word software.  Microsoft Word is everyone’s favorite text editor. With so many features, it can meet all your requirements. It may look complicated to use initially, but once you get the hang of it, things start falling in place. This blog post is for those who want to learn the basic functions and features and know more about Microsoft Word.

To start the Microsoft Word application, click on the START button > Microsoft Office > Word or simply search for ‘Word’ in the search box and then click on the result. Once it is opened, select New document.

This is how the opened blank Microsoft Word document will look like.

Now let us take a look at the features that it has to offer.

1] Title and the Quick Access Toolbar

At the top, you have the Title of the document, the Quick Access Toolbar and a few other functions such as Minimize, Restore Down / Maximize, Close and Ribbon Display Options.

In the Quick Access Toolbar to the left of the Title Bar, you will find the Save button (Ctrl+S), wherein you can save the document in the desired folder; the Undo Typing button (Ctrl+Z); the Repeat Typing button (Ctrl+Y); and the Customize Quick Access Toolbar, wherein you have the various commands as shown in the image below.

In the Ribbon Display Options, it is possible to Auto-hide the ribbon, show the ribbon tabs only or show the tabs and commands all the time. Refer to the image below.

Below the Title Bar, you will see what is called the Ribbon which consists of various tabs such as File, Home, Insert, Design, Layout, References, Mailings, Review, View, Help, Search. Now let us go through every Tab and its commands.

2] Home

The Home tab is the default tab in Microsoft Word. This tab comprises of features related to the clipboard, font, paragraph, styles, and editing.

In the Clipboard section, you will find commands such as copy, cut and paste. Next, we have the Font section. Here you can change the font and the font size for your text, change the case, apply bold or italic formatting, underline, change the font color and highlight text and also add various text effects and typography. Go ahead and explore all the different options to make your text look great and innovative!

The Paragraph section includes the alignment options where you can choose to align your text in the center, left, right or justify it (that is, evenly distribute the text between the margins).

You can add or remove borders, increase or decrease indent, adjust the line and paragraph spacing, and also add bullets and numbers from the bullets and numbering libraries.

You can also create a multilevel list to organize items or create an outline.

From the Styles section, you can select any style of your choice to change the way your document looks. In the Editing section, you can find text or any content in the document and also replace a specific word or text with something else.

3] Insert

The next tab is the Insert tab.

You can add a stylish cover page from the numerous styles available to make your document look more professional and also add a blank page from the Pages section. Another important feature is inserting a table, a picture from your picture gallery, an online picture from the web, shapes, 3D models, charts, SmartArt and screenshots from the Tables and the Illustrations section. Refer to the images below for guidance.

You can insert Tables.

You can insert  Shapes.

You can insert SmartArt – and more!

In the Header & Footer section, you can add a built-in header and a footer or from online sources. You can also add page numbers to your document.

Similarly, there are a lot of other features and commands in the Add-ins, Media, Links, Comments, Text and Symbols sections.

4] Design

The Design tab comprises of commands related to Document Formatting and Page Background. To make your document look more consistent and classy, choose the right theme of your liking from the various options available. Additional features include colors, fonts, effects, and paragraph spacing.

If you wish to go for a splash of color for the document background, you can change the page color as well, add Watermark and page borders.

5] Layout

In this tab, in the Page Setup section, you can adjust margins for the entire document or for a particular section; and also customize it. You can change the Page Orientation to Landscape or Portrait; choose the page size for your document, and add or remove columns.

You can also decide the Size for the document.

Find the settings to increase or decrease the Indent and Spacing in the Paragraph section.

Other features related to the placement of text and pictures, grouping multiple images and rotation options will be found in the Arrange section.

6] References

In the References tab, you will find different commands related to the table of contents, footnotes, research, citations and bibliography, captions, index and table of authorities.

7] Mailings

Here, you will find settings that will help you to create envelopes and labels, start the mail merge wherein you can send it to multiple recipients, write and insert fields, preview results and finish mail merge.

8] Review

The Review tab includes various functions related to proofing, speech, accessibility, language, comments, tracking, changes, compare, protect and ink. Out of all these, the Spelling and Grammar function (F7) is of utmost importance. Do check for spelling and grammatical errors after you are done writing your document.

9] View

In the View tab, you can change the views such as Read Mode, Print Layout, Web Layout, etc. Feel free to explore the additional features from the immersive, page movement, show, zoom, window, macros, and SharePoint sections.

10] Help

In the Help tab, you can contact an office support agent and give feedback.

11] Search

In the Search tab, you can type any feature that you are looking for and get help.

12] File

In the File tab, you can save the document, print and share the document, and also publish it.

In this post, I have tried to cover all the basic and useful features and functions of Microsoft Word.

This is my first blog post and I hope it was helpful to you. Your suggestions are most welcome.

Do try out all these features in order to make your MS Word document absolutely presentable and perfect!

Next, you might want to take a look at our Microsoft Word Tips And Tricks post.

release candidate

Microsoft has developed Vista SP2 using a "single serviceability model," which means it'll apply to both Vista clients and Windows Server 2008 servers. While Vista SP1 was a comprehensive update that addressed many of the performance- and device-driver compatibility issues that early Vista users faced, Vista SP2 is aimed more at fine-tuning performance.

In a Wednesday blog post, Brandon LeBlanc, a communications manager on the Windows Client Communications Team, said SP2 includes all the updates Microsoft has released since SP1, and support for new types of hardware and emerging standards.

"Specifically, we expect SP2 to continue the security benefits of both products and simplify deployment for our customers," LeBlanc wrote. Microsoft plans to release SP2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 sometime in the second quarter.

SP2 for Vista and Server 2008 also includes Windows Search 4.0, which speeds indexing and query response times; the Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack, which includes the technology's most accurate specification; and Windows Connect Now, which makes it easier to set up Wi-Fi connections.

Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2022 for Mac 17.0 Release Candidate 2. The update mostly addresses the top reported issues from the first release candidate. The most notable improvement in the update is that Microsoft has moved the User Interface (UI) of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to the fully native macOS UI.

The just-released Visual Studio 2022 for Mac 17.0 Release Candidate 2 could be one of the most important updates for the platform. Besides multiple bug fixes, the update transitions the IDE to the fully native macOS UI. Moreover, Microsoft has migrated the IDE to run on top of .NET 6. This means the Visual Studio application has received native support for Apple’s M1 (ARM64) processor. This should ensure the platform runs well on Apple Silicon.

Microsoft has offered Release Notes of the Visual Studio 2022 for Mac 17.0 RC2 that includes the entire list of the fixes. However, some of the most prominent customer-reported issues fixed in this release are as follows:

It is important to note that some users outside of the U.S. region may experience delays and failures in updating Visual Studio for Mac and other downloads. Microsoft has confirmed that it is aware of the issue and internal teams are investigating it.