Thanks to the great help by Rick Klau, VP, Publisher Services, FeedBurner, the problem I raised earlier today in a blog post has been identified.

According to a post by the Microsoft RSS team, Outlook 2007/IE7 should identify themselves in the HTTP request of an RSS feed as “Windows-RSS-Platform/1.0″ when requesting subscribed feeds. Rick determined though that Outlook 2007 B2TR identifies itself as “Mozilla/4.0″, which is the user-agent string used by IE7 when a feed is just browsed to. Therefore all subscriptions from Outlook 2007 didn’t get counted, but rather recorded as hits by a webbrowser. I will keep you updated.

Update

Important: Office 2007 Beta Ending Soon

Important: Please do NOT email me asking for assistance. Please post all your issues directly into the appropriate Microsoft community newsgroup.

Important: With RTM downloads now available, do NOT mix Beta and RTM!

For RTM issues, see my RTM issues post. 

Now that B2TR has been released, the first issues are cropping up. You should read this BEFORE installing B2TR.

Everyone

• Microsoft is recommending that everyone delete the “Building Blocks.dotx” file in order to have the most up-to-date content in galleries. To do so, use Start, Run, type “%appdata%\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks” and delete the file “Building Blocks.dotx” there. Word will recreate the file automatically once you open it again and drop-down a gallery. Note that you shouldn’t delete the file, if you moved the Building Blocks (galleries e.g.) content.
• The RSS support of Outlook has been significantly improved in B2TR. Due to that, Microsoft is recommending to follow the steps outlined in this MS blog post.

File Not Found / File Not Available

• When you try to open files in Access, PPT, Word or Excel B2TR, you receive the message “File not Found”. Or, your files just won’t open.
  Solution (from the known issues page): Office has an anti-virus API which we call every time we load a file. In 2007 Microsoft Office a change was made to support scanning encrypted macros. In making this change, we inadvertently changed the size of a data structure in the conversation, and Symantec’s Norton scanner returns an error saying this was unexpected. We treat ANY error from the scanner as a critical failure and block opening files. Unfortunately we do that in ALL cases where the scanner is called. In short with 2007 Office Beta 2 Technical Refresh and Norton Antivirus (any version) the user cannot open any files in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access and Project. The user receives an error of File failed to open, File not found, etc.
  We currently only see this with the Symantec’s Consumer Norton AV product. Most corporate deployments do not use this plug-in. We are also checking other scanners to see if they are affected. In the Norton case the best option is to disable the Office plug-in. See Method 2: in this KB for guidance on how to do that.
• When you try to open files in Excel B2TR, you receive the message “File not Found”.
  Solution: In Excel, this could be due to the following checkbox being checked: Excel Options, Advanced, General section, Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE).

File Format Issues / Corrupted Files

• It is good practice to save all files created in the new file formats (docx, xlsx, pptx, etc) in the 97-2003 file formats (doc, xls, ppt, etc) before installing B2TR. If there any issues with your files in B2TR, you are then able to resort to the versions in the older file formats.
• Files created in B1 and B1TR will NOT open in B2TR. You need to save them under a different file name in B2.
• Word files saved in Beta 2 in the new XML file format (dotx, dotm, etc) should open in Word B2TR. If you are having issues with a file, please email it to me right away. As a precaution though, you should save all your Word files in the 97-2003 document formats (doc, dot) in Beta 2 before installing B2TR. This will guarantee that you can still open them in B2TR.
• Files created in Excel 2007 Beta 2 in the new XML file formats should open in Excel B2TR without any problems. If you experience any problems with these files, please email them to me right away.
• Files created in PowerPoint Beta 2 in the new XML file formats should open in PowerPoint B2TR. If you experience any problems with these files, please email them to me right away.
  The only exception is: Custom Colors and Custom Fonts saved as a theme (*.thmx) or presentation (*.pptx) from Beta2 do not show up in Theme Colors or Theme Fonts galleries when opened/applied in Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR).
• When you open Word or Outlook, it complains about “Normal.dotm” or “NormalEmail.dotm” being corrupt or being in the wrong format.
  Solution: The issue should disappear when you open Outlook/Word again. If that isn’t the case, type “%appdata%\Microsoft\Templates” into Start, Run (this is the location for Windows XP), and rename the two files there to something else. This will force Outlook/Word to recreate them from scratch in the correct format.
• When you open Word and when you try to insert an item from a gallery, you get a message that “Building Blocks.dotx” is corrupted.
  Solution: Start, Run, type “%appdata%\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks” and delete the file “Building Blocks.dotx” there. Word will recreate the file correctly when you open it again.
• When you open a new XML file format Word document (dotx, dotm, etc) in Word 2007 B2TR, you receive a message that the file is corrupted.
  Solution: The file you tried to open was most likely created in B1 or B1TR. B2TR cannot read files created in B1 or B1TR. You should open the file in B2 and save it using Save As under a new filename. As an additional precaution, you should also save it in the 97-2003 document formats (doc, dot).
  

Installation of B2TR

• There is a minimum requirement for 2.0 GB of free space on the Windows
  partition in order to install the client patch. This is a hard requirement
  that is needed because of the large size of the client patch (nearly 500
  mb), and the way that Windows Installer patching works. Some of this space
  will be returned after installation, but no more than 500 mb can be expected
  to be returned after installation. If you do not have enough disk space on
  this partition, you should take steps to increase the amount of free space.
• If you have tampered with the \MSOCache folder or it is damaged in some
  way, you will be prompted for the source files. Do not move or delete this
  folder.
• The B2TR patch cannot be uninstalled. The only way to revert your installation back to Beta 2 is to remove Office 2007 completely and the reinstall Beta 2.
• Once you have installed the B2TR patch, you cannot install any Office 2007 Beta 2 programs anymore.
• If you downloaded the German language pack for Beta 2 English, then you have to download the full German B2TR patch as well. Otherwise, the German spell checker will crash in Outlook and Word. In addition, you need to get the German B2TR SLP patch as well. The SLP specific patch does not include the German spell checker which is contained in the full German B2TR patch. If you want to, you can also extract proof-de-de.msp from the full German B2TR patch and install it and the German SLP patch only.
• See this KB article for troubleshooting B2TR installation issues.
• B2TR and all B2TR downloads (e.g. PDF add-in) are compatible with Vista RC1. If you want do a clean install of Vista RC1 with Office 2007, then install RC1 first, followed by Office 2007 Beta 2 and then B2TR. If you have a current installation of Vista Beta 2 with Office 2007 Beta 2, then install B2TR first followed by the update to Vista RC1.
• Do not install B2TR on Vista Beta 2, if you are not planning to immediately upgrade to Vista RC1. B2TR is designed for Vista RC1 and you will probably not be able to use Office 2007 B2TR under Vista B2.
• If you find yourself unable to remove Office 2007 B2TR or to reinstall Office 2007 Beta 2 after removing it, please contact me via email.
• If you have OneNote 2007 installed, please read my OneNote B2TR post as well.

Instant Search, BCM, PDF, XPS, Add-Ins, Expression Web, Links in Outlook, Misc

• Instant search for Outlook and OneNote is not available in Vista Beta 2.
  Solution: You need to upgrade to Vista RC1.
• All add-ins written for Office 2007 don’t work anymore, and/or give error messages.
  Solution: Disable those add-ins for now and wait for updates from the developers. Microsoft changed a lot. The new control ID list is now available for download (posted by Jensen Harris and linked from his blog). You can now also get the new customUI.xsd.
• BCM Beta 2 is not compatible with Outlook 2007 B2TR.
  Solution: Download BCM B2TR
• After installing B2TR, files cannot be saved in PDF or XPS format.
  Solution: Due to a legal disagreement with Adobe, Microsoft is providing XPS and PDF functionality only as downloadable add-ins (PDF, XPS, PDF and XPS).
• Windows Desktop Search 3 Beta 1 is not compatible with Outlook and OneNote B2TR.
  Solution: Install Windows Desktop Search 3 Beta 2.
• Expression Web Beta 1 can be installed after the B2TR patch has been applied.
• In Outlook 2007 B2TR running under Vista RC1, you receive the error message “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator” when you click a link in Outlook.
  Solution: FireFox seems to be responsible for this. Check this blog post for steps on how to resolve the error.
• Word 2007 crashes moments after opening under Vista RC1. Your default printer is a Dell 5100CN network printer.
  Solution: Make a different printer your default printer.
• If you have a completely corrupted Ribbon after installing B2TR, remove all Office 2007 applications and reinstall them again as Beta 2 followed by B2TR.
• You cannot use Word 2007 as Outlook 2003’s email editor. Outlook 2003 was not designed to work with Word 2007. This is not a bug. This is by design.

I’ll keep updating this post with new information.

If you can’t find the solution to an issue here, please check the official known issues list.

You can download B2TR here. All B2TR downloads are available on the Microsoft download page.

Hint: If you have subscribed to my blog with Outlook 2007 B2TR and would like to be told by Outlook whenever I update this post, then go into Tools, Options, Other, Advanced Options and check “Any RSS Feed item that is updated appears as a new item”. This will ensure that this post is marked as unread by Outlook after I posted an update.

Note: All the examples and add-ins posted on this blog do NOT work with B2TR. I’ll be updating them in the coming days/weeks.
Last updated 2006-09-29 12:08 ET

None of my add-ins works in B2TR. You should just disable them for now. The reason is that Microsoft changed all idMso’s. Unfortunately the new control ID lists aren’t out yet, so I can’t update my add-ins for now.

Today, I am releasing the first alpha version of my RibbonCustomizer add-in. As it is alpha, it still has bugs. Some of which are listed as known issues. For a discussion of this add-in, see my RibbonCustomizer overview post.
In this alpha version, you can use it to swap groups among tabs, create your own tabs and remove any existing MS group or tab. In addition to that, you can also load any RibbonX XML file.

The RibbonCustomizer add-in will appear on the View tab in Excel, PowerPoint and Word, but on the Add-in tab in Access and Outlook. In its current form, it doesn’t show you actual labels for tabs and groups (the labels you see normally in the Ribbon UI), but rather the internal Microsoft IDs (the idMso’s of RibbonX). This is a limitation only for this release and will be different in the final version. In Excel, you’ll actually see labels for some tabs & groups. The main feature of the add-in is to provide you with a UI to customize the ribbon.
In addition to that, you can use it to load any arbitray RibbonX file into any of the ribbon applications. This is not only useful for Office users who want a specific customization currently not supported yet, but also for developers who want to see what a particular RibbonX file will look like when loaded.

The RibbonX package file format is not an Office file format. It is rather a file format used by my add-in. With a normal RibbonX XML file, it is not possible to ensure that the RibbonX is actually being loaded into the right application. The RibbonX package file includes a check to ensure that users can only use it in the correct application. I see its usefuleness in distributing customizations via websites. The format is currently undocumented and still subject to change.

This is an alpha version. Therefore, please do not install it in a production environment. Please make sure to follow the installation instructions.

You can download it from my Office 2007 customization page.

Please post all issues and bugs as comments to this post.

Callbacks are a fundamental feature of RibbonX. It is therefore important for developers to understand when they are executed and when they may fail. As a principal rule, callbacks shouldn’t assume anything and should protect themselves against all potential failures. Let me illustrate some of the difficulties with the following example.

Revisiting the StyleChooser add-in

V1.2.1 of my StyleChooser add-in contained a callback that failed. To reproduce the error, you can download V1.2.1 and its source code. Install it and open Word. Before you continue, make sure that UI errors of add-ins are being displayed (Word Options, Advanced, General section, Show add-in user interface errors). With the Home tab displayed, switch to the Full Screen Reading mode via the status bar. In that mode, click on Print Layout. You should then see a CustomUI error message: An exception occured while calling function “GetText”. The exception message is: This method or property is not available because typing is not currently allowed for reading.

What happened? GetText looks like this:

Public Function GetText(ByVal control As IRibbonControl) As String

If control.Id = “comboStyleChooser” Then

Dim selection As Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Selection = DirectCast(applicationObject.Selection, Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Selection)

Return formattedStyle(DirectCast(selection.Style, Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Style))

End If

Return “”

End Function

The error is caused by the call selection.Style as Word is still in the Full Screen Reading mode when the callback is being executed. In that mode, this particular call is not allowed. I fixed this problem with V1.2.2 by wrapping the call in a try-catch statement (download source code). I assumed this to be a bug in Word 2007 and submitted it to Microsoft as such. Unfortunately, Microsoft couldn’t fix the issue as executing callbacks when the ribbon was already displayed caused some serious flickering.

Don’t assume anything

Therefore add-in developers need to ensure that callbacks don’t make any assumptions. A callback cannot assume that a particular document is open or that the application is in a particular mode:

Callbacks might be executed before the user interface or any particular document is displayed or available via the object model.

Callbacks should not assume anything and should be ready to be called at any time. They therefore need to check for various conditions to prevent errors like the one in my StyleChooser 1.2.1 version. This applies to all RibbonX callbacks, not just to those implemented by COM add-ins.