Comments on: Hands-on with Microsoft's free Works

News.com's Ina Fried heads to a couple retail stores to check out Microsoft's ad-supported Works running on Sony laptops. The verdict: the ads aren't that obtrusive.

[feranick]

What's the point?

Why even bothering with Works SE when you can get a fully featured, ad-free, and actually $$$-free office suite for free, called OpenOffice? I mean you need to seriously rethink your life if you think Works is anywhere useful. Awful compatibility problems, weird format, lack of features.

Do yourself a favor. Get rid of Works and get OpenOffice.

[Seaspray0]

Creative Advertising?

So how is microsoft going to promote this? Hmmm.... Wait! I got it:

"Would you want to watch the Super Bowl and miss the adds? Of course not! The adds are the best part. So don't miss your adds in your favorite Microsoft Works..."

LOL! Don't forget the disclaimer... "not responsible for ooxml compatibility."

[PaulEdl]

Works vs (wimpy) Google Apps

Rant time. I realize I'm slightly off topic here but the irony is that Works kicks the pants off of Google Apps which is also free and has paid advertisements and yet some of these insane pundits LOVE Google apps and thinks it's so visionary. If Microsoft released Google Apps, people would call it a pathetic attempt but because Google slaps a name on it, it's magnificent. How pathetic!

Google Apps is 7 years Microsoft behind Works and like it or not Works is used by a lot of people and supports all the online/offline abilities that Google is trying desparately to support with Google Gears.

[Save_Me_from_my_Govt]

Exactly! OpenOffice here I come

The first thing I would do is wipe Works off any machine that it was loaded on, and get a REAL office suite, i.e., OpenOffice.

They can keep their ads....

[Leria]

Open-Office stinks

I hate to say that, considering that I was someone who wanted it to be a good application, but it just simply wasn't.

It couldn't open the newest Microsoft Office document format, the ODT's that it outputted were and are extremely large compared to Microsoft DOCX documents...... it just isn't ready for prime-time.

[davekoob]

Print screen

Is the Print Screen key on your keyboard broken?

Its totally not that hard to hit Print Screen (or heck even use ALT Print Screen and just capture your MS Works window!!!)

Way to look like a bunch of noobs CNET!!!

Thanks!

[ReVeLaTeD]

Pot, meet kettle.

Did you not notice where they clearly indicated being at Costco and using the display computers (meaning they can Print Screen all they want, but have no ability to save the image out)?

No?

Did you then not notice the huge 799 price tag above the first laptop screen, indicating them being at a store and not on their personal laptops (meaning they can Print Screen all they want, but have no ability to save the image out)?

Read. Before you go off calling peeps names.

[Kev Orng]

This post will self-destruct in 30 seconds

Personally I think Spy pics look much more authentic and exciting when they're taken surreptitiously with a phone-cam. When I see screen shots, I think, "you're no spy, you got a review copy, you scammer!"

Call me a purist, but I like it when the writer stays within the conventions of the genre.



posted from my shoe-PDA

[sleepy7]

Can you read?

The camera photos were taken of laptops at Costco that were running Works. How are you supposed to get screen shots off the laptops? They do not have internet access. I don't think Costco would like you plugging in a flash drive to their machines if it isn't blocked already.

[The_Decider]

Yuck

Ad supported?

Why bother since there are alternatives much better than Works that don't bombard you with ads.

Only the most brain dead MS fan could find anything of value here.

[Seaspray0]

Who uses Works?

Does anyone still use Works? Not anyone I know. Most of my neighbors didn't even know it existed on their home computers. Maybe Cnet has some statistics they'd be willing to print.

[Leria]

A lot of people don't use Works anymore

Because their computers come with a full version of Microsoft Office Home & Teacher Edition, or a way to get a seriously cheapened Microsoft Office.

[dagwud]

Or...

Maybe when you're tinkering around with a display computer in a store, it's just quicker to snap a photo.

That way you don't have to deal with those uppity employees questioning why you're sticking a thumbdrive in their computer.

[Kev Orng]

Why talk about works?

Isn't Works the free program that comes on a Windows machine so that it's not completely useless out of the box before the user installs apps?
I don't think it's even fully comapatible with full Office. Worth discussing? not really.

You can buy Office if you want to ensure (kinda) compatibility with other office users, or you can get Open Office for free (and no ads) to ensure compatibility with almost all Office users (I have a co-worker who uses Open Office to convert newer Microsoft Office documents to old MIcrosoft office formats.) Or you can get iWork on a mac which is pretty nice too and fully compatible, but I think the future is in Open Office and its offshots (Neo Office, and the Lotus onem symphony?)

Works always has been, and always will be, a stop-gap program between the time you get your new computer, and the time you decide you actually need to buy and/or download a REAL office suite. But Open Office is fully functional and free.

[suyts]

Well, depends on what you call

fully functional. Working with OO is very reminiscent of working with MS Office 97. And compared to Office 97, OO is fully functional. Compared to 2007....not really.
OTOH, you're right, why bother with Works when you can get OO, a clearly better office suite, for free and ad free.

[t8]

The problem with Microsoft

The problem with Microsoft is that too many people have bought their stuff in the past and they have this expectation that people will default to them.
But consumers are getting wiser and with competitors like Google out there, Microsoft is not the no1 choice on the Internet.

So given that, serving up an Office Suite less than Google Docs is not really competitive. But I am sure that there will be some computer illiterate people out there who will go wow.

[igl00lgi]

What?

This product was a dud when it was not ad driven, why would any one use it with the ads? What a joke. The ugly stepchild of the desktop productivity software displays ads and now it is a top notch product. Only a monopolist would pull such a move and think it would make money.

[Mergatroid Mania]

Wouldn't buy it

The one thing I took away from your article was that, if I decide to purchase a computer or laptop soon, I will ask to make sure the computer does not carry the ad version of works.
I used the add version of Eudora for a while, which had a similar advertisement, and it annoyed me enough to go back to Outlook.

Note that there's a new thing called a Screen Shot. Works better than taking a picture of your monitor.

[andysr]

More People Would Use It

If it is as feature rich as it looks in the a couple of pics I've seen, I think more people would use it. Let's face it, who uses everything that is on Microsoft Office 1997,2000,2003, and 2007? I think most people use only about 5% of all the different functions in any of those full featured suites. It looks better than Google Docs.

[zclayton2]

I thought

Manufacturers were moving away from loading crapware on sysems. Works has traditionally been a joke. Even other m$ applications like Office wont work well with it. An I have not been able to open anything from Office on it since Win95. Ever had to resend a club newsletter in .txt because the only thing loaded at the home computer was Works? It Sucks.

[ralfthedog]

Use RTF not TXT.

In many ways RTF is the best of all text formats. Everything can read it (Other than Notepad. If you are stuck running Windows, try Word Pad). It is also Macro Virus free and has all of the basic formating.

We ask that most people outside of the company send us documents in RTF just because we have seen so many macro viruses in the past.

PS. 9 out of 10 venders will just take a DOC file and rename it RTF.

[solomonrex]

silly

On the consumer side, OpenOffice is also free and is more compatible with Microsoft Office - with no ads.

For MS, if you're serving ads, why not go online? If you want it run it locally, why not use Silverlight? And if you are working on this, just give away Works and start spreading the beta Works around, generate some interest.

[JCPayne]

If we're in Web 2.0-- then adware within M$ works must be Web 0.99a

Huh? Are we going backwards in time... Who uses adware these days??? That is soo pre Web 1.0..... That must be Web 0.99 alpha....

[JCPayne]

Save yourself the hassle of adware. Get OpenOffice.

Forget the hassle...

Open Office is free... As in Free Beer, for you to use no strings attached.... Forget the ads shrinking down your user experience.

http://www.openoffice.org/

[AppleSuxLeo]

OpenOffice is a POS...Tried it !

An ad supported free basic version of MS Office or at least Word would put these open source immitators out of their misery.

[drfrost]

I use open office almost daily...

I do my work on linux so Word is simply not an option. And OpenOffice works fine. I'm happy to have it.

[JCPayne]

Or the other way round... So long Micro...

Its good to see Microsoft going backwards....

Where did you want to go yesterday???

[Igiveup2]

OOo is OK

Not as nice as MS Office apps, but adequate for most common tasks. Most MS Office users barely scratch the surface of its functionality anyway. You have to be a power user to really get much of an advantage from MS Office over OOo. Works is crapware, always was.

[feranick]

Details?

Would you share with us why you think OO.org is so bad? Many of us thinks is actually rather good.

[vidanuevatx]

Works must have some value

Many, many people who buy a computer never create a document that Works could not handle. All they need is the basics: font formatting, basic spreadsheets, not much else. Works is prettier than OpenOffice. It has fewer commands, which is an advantage if you find even those few commands confusing.

I do wonder, however, why manufacturers don't load OpenOffice by default. I'm guessing that Microsoft makes it unpleasant for them to do so.

[grandpa5x2009]

You can have Office 2007, and I don't know about all the other versions since the Windows ME products (my last computer). It came with works,money, and a couple other cd's. Admittedly I'm a long way from being computer literate, but I never had a problem with anything in that system. I recently bought this new laptop and of course it came with vista which is a pile of crap, also a 60 day trial of Office 2007. I didn't immediately open it because I didn't have any use for it at the time, a few weeks ago I had to download a form online, bingo, I had to open Office to do it, after an excessive amount of time it loaded and brought the form up, now with works there are a couple of different ways to print, I couldn't find one in Office, finally sent the form to my son who has my old computer I gave to my granddaughter and he printed for me. The next day I deleted Office 2007 and picked up almost 300MB of "usable" memory.