Bollocks. I really screwed this up. Today is the launch of Windows Vista and Office 2007. As a Microsoft MVP I’m given $150 “MVP bucks” which is money I can spend in the Microsoft eCompany Store. I was surprised that the online company store had stock, because there were rumours about retail gobbling up all the available copies, but they’re selling Office 2007 Home & Student (which lacks Outlook) for $30, and Office 2007 Standard
(which has Outlook) for $50. I agonized for a while trying to decide what to buy, then opted to buy five copies of Home & Student for friends and family. My family is accustomed to using Outlook, but in looking at Windows Mail and Windows Calendar on Vista, I thought that would be sufficient for their needs. I dug around in each program more, and realized that Microsoft made the incredibly stupid mistake (again) of having Windows Mail store user data (email) deep in a hidden folder, in multiple files. That will making backing up, migration, and everything else a pain. And I realized too that my father in particular is fond of Outlook, and he likely wouldn’t be happy with Mail + Calendar. So I cancelled my order for the five copies of Office 2007 Home & Student, planning on placing an order for three copies of Office 2007 Standard. And I’m still waiting. It seems that when you cancel an order, it can take up to 24 hours for your account to be credited back the MVP bucks, meaning I can’t order anything until that happens. And in 24 hours, I fully expect the company store to be completely out of stock for anything that I’d need… 🙁
UPDATE: Hooray! My “bucks” were credited back and I ordered the copes of Office 2007 that I wanted. Strangely enough though the online store didn’t have any number listed for inventory, it just said the word “inventory”. So we’ll see when these things actually show up…