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With any large-scale update, glitches are inevitable--- and the Office 2000 "Service Release-1" update (at 26-40MB) is about as big as they come. It fixes hundreds of bug---er, "issues" across the entire suite. With that much going on, at the end of the day it's probably a must-have upgrade, especially because it's free. (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-mar-23.htm#5 )

But some people are reporting problems getting the update to work. In fact, I ran into a glitch where my first attempt to upgrade generated a message stating "Internal Error 2371, Please contact product support for assistance."

I didn't want to go down the all-too-often unhappy tech support highway, so I simply deleted the downloaded files, rebooted, and tried again. (Thank goodness for cable modems.) The second time worked fine, although there was a bit of confusion caused by the fact that I had bought FrontPage2000 as separate purchase from the rest of Office. (Actually, I had FP2K long before I upgraded the rest of my Office suite.) The SR-1 upgrade stumbled a bit in trying to handle the separate product, but eventually all was well.

Reader "JW" ran into the same "error 2371" glitch and--- brave man--- did call tech support:

I downloaded SR-1 yesterday. It took about 20 minutes with a 384K DSL connection. After downloading, I clicked install, and the installation seemed to proceed normally until partway through the first (CD1) file. Then it stopped and displayed an Internal Error 2371, "Please contact product support for assistance." I have what must be a rather typical setup - Win98SE & IE 5.0, and had closed NAV etc before trying to install.

I called MS support, and was quickly guided through installation by a woman based in North Dakota. She had me copy setup.exe to an SR1 directory (I think - it may already have been there after my first attempt to install), then run setup in a DOS window with the switches
/c /t:c:\sr1. The program installed without any problems, other than an hour toll call to MS.

Thanks, JW; you may have just saved some other readers an hour's worth of phone tolls to Washington state!

Some other users report their Office apps simply don't run after the upgrade--- the apps start and then immediately close. Their best option is probably to uninstall Office, reinstall, and do the upgrade again.

In short, this is not yet a hassle-free upgrade. You may wish to order the CD and wait the couple months it will take to arrive; the version you get may be better debugged than the downloadable version available now.

But if you're feeling adventurous, you can get additional information on the components, on the downloads, or the CD here:
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/

And this page has additional detailed instructions you might find useful, too:
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/articles/SBSO2KSR1.htm

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3) Wow! The Votes Are In!

In the last issue, I asked you to cast your vote on whether or not I should continue posting tips and tweaks that serve a legitimate purpose, but that also can be misued. (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-mar-23.htm#7)

Reader Ray Evans wasn't happy with the idea of a vote:

Would you like me to predict the vote on whether or not you should present other "gray" tweaks similar to the multiple HTTP connections tweak? It's a no-brainer that people will vote YES.

But it is very democratic of you to pass off the responsibility to your readers. What a sandbag. I suppose you'll next be using logic similar to what hackers/crackers use when publishing their DoS attack programs. "Hey, I was just pointing out security flaws for the betterment of the net and mankind in general." Should you publish any information that's available in the public domain? Well, why not?

Whether or not Netscape and Opera offer menu items for simultaneous HTTP connections is way beside the point your reader was making.

Personally, I think it's about time the media -- TV, Radio, Print and Net -- want to be cops at least to the extent of policing themselves. I know it's tough when your livelihood depends on your readership but give it a little more thought instead of passing the buck.

I appreciate and respect Ray's viewpoint, and that of other readers who expressed similar views. In fact, that was why I had my internal debate about presenting that type of information in the first place.

But there are hacks and there are hacks. For example:

CDR is perhaps the best-ever backup medium. But it also can be used to illegally copy software. Should I not discuss CDR?

Should I not tell people how to bypass a corrupt Windows password file because that also could be used to bypass the light password security on someone else's system?

Should I not tell people about connection-sharing software because some ISPs specifically forbid connection sharing?

I don't think so--- and that's why I went ahead and presented the "maximum connection" browser tip that started this whole discussion. (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-mar-20.htm#5)

But that's also why I asked your opinion, via vote; I was "reality checking" to ensure my thinking was straight.

Well, *thousands* of you voted--- my mailbox was swamped! And an incredible 98.8% of you voted "yes, continue presenting the tweaks." In that way, Ray was right. <g>

Although they were few, many of those who voted "no tweaks" offered heartfelt and sincere reasons why. But I must respectfully disagree with those arguments.

I will continue posting tweaks, and as before will point out the pros and the cons. I simply ask that you use the information I present here responsibly and only in the manner intended.

My thanks to all who voted!

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