Excel 2003 and me - a lasting relationship, it seems

I was fortunate enough to be allowed to install Office Ultimate 2007 on my work laptop. Fortunate because Microsoft did a really good job with the applications.

My comments on each one I spent time with:

Outlook: Small things make it so much better, like having your calendar as a sidebar on the Mail and Preview page.

Word: Word remains Word, but I like the Ribbon.

Excel: I have known for a long time that "Compatibility Mode" ensures my custom menus created for earlier Excel versions will remain. The Ribbon is intuitive, and the cell grid is no longer a default gray colour, but a nice light blue. Impossible to replicate in Excel 2003, by the way. I tried… It makes the whole experience so much more eye-friendly.

Did not spend any time in VBA, so I do not know what new functions exist yet.

PowerPoint: One word: Wow! Want to change the style of your slide pack? Just hover your mouse over an option, and a live preview shows you what it will look like.

Access: Did not spend a lot of time in Access, but again the User Interface is much better than previous versions, and it refreshed my love of databases.

All in all, well worth the investment, and I do not want to go back to Office 2003. However, we do not always get what we want. Upon reconnecting to the network at work a few days ago, after a suspected IT policy change, my installation was never the same again, to the point where I had to re-image my machine (wipe it all, and start afresh with a clean operating system). So now I am back to the old and trusty Office 2003. I am so tempted to install Office 2007 again, but I promised the Desktop Support people I would not do this again. Perhaps if I back up the registry, set a system restore point?...