Category: Microsoft Outlook

Software / Microsoft Outlook Category

Windows 10’s features

The new Windows 10 notifications will follow you everywhere

Windows 10 has a new notifications center for your apps — even the ones from your Windows Phone.

When you’re poking around Windows 10, you’ll notice something new: A small taskbar button that, when clicked, reveals a sidebar full of app notifications.

Welcome to the new notifications center, which is basically the Windows 10 version of the Action center in Windows Phone 8.1. The notifications center is part of Microsoft’s dream of “Windows everywhere” — it’s a universal notifications center that will pop up your app notifications across multiple platforms. Because who doesn’t want to be alerted about new Twitter followers on their phone, tablet, and now PC?

The new notifications center consists of two parts: The notifications area at the top, and the “quick actions” bar at the bottom. In the notifications area you’ll see notifications from various apps, including Twitter, Facebook, and your email account, as well as notifications from phone apps (e.g. alarms) if applicable.

Mouse over notifications and click the ‘X’ to dismiss them.

You can dismiss notifications three different ways: You can mouse over the app name (e.g. Twitter) and click the ‘X’ next to it to dismiss all notifications from that app. You can also mouse over each individual notification and click the ‘X’ next to it to dismiss that specific notification. Or you can click Clear All in the upper right corner of the notifications center to dismiss all notifications from all apps. Because this is a “Windows everywhere” feature, notifications you dismiss in the notifications center will also be dismissed on your other Windows devices, such as your phone.

In the quick actions bar, you’ll see four quick-access buttons as well as an Expand link. Click Expand to see all quick actions. Actions include things like a Tablet Mode toggle button, a link to the Display settings, a link to all settings, and toggle buttons for Location and Wi-Fi. Tap a quick action button to toggle a setting (tablet mode, location, Wi-Fi) on or off, or to go directly to the settings menu so you can configure your display, connection, or VPN.

Pick your quick access quick actions from the Settings menu.

To choose which quick actions appear above the break, go to Settings > Notifications & actions > Choose your quick actions. Here, you’ll see four small buttons that you can click on to swap out actions. If you’d prefer to have your Wi-Fi toggle on hand whenever you open the notifications bar, you can switch it for the Display button. Of course, you’ll always be able to see all of the quick actions by clicking Expand in the notifications bar.

In the Settings menu, you can also choose which apps’ notifications to display.

Here, you can also pick and choose which app notifications you’ll see in the notifications bar. If you want to turn all notifications off, you can simply click the toggle next to Show App Notifications. You’ll no longer see pop-up banner notifications, nor will you see app notifications when you open the notifications center.

If you’d prefer to just turn off notifications for specific apps, you can do that, too — find the app in the list and click its toggle to Off. Next to each app in the list you’ll see a link to Advanced notifications settings for that app. Go into Advanced to turn off specific notifications for that app — either banner notifications (pop-ups in the lower right corner of your screen) or notifications in the notifications center.

Want to turn your clock off? You can do that, too.

In the Notifications & Actions section, you can also clean up your taskbar by clicking “Select which icons to appear in the taskbar” (you can turn on and off things like the Network icon and the Volume icon), or by clicking “Turn system icons on or off.” In “Turn system icons on or off,” you can turn off the clock, input indicator or action center — in other words, you can turn off all system tray icons and have a completely icon-less system tray, if you so choose.

Have questions?

Want to get Windows 10?

Contact Our Expert IT business team
Call us at: 856-745-9990 or Visit: https://southjerseytechies.net/

South Jersey Techies, LLC is a full Managed Web and Technology Services Company providing IT Services, Website Design Services, Server Support, Network Consulting, Internet Phones, Cloud Solutions Provider and much more. Contact for More Information.

To read this article in its entirety click here.

Microsoft overhauls Outlook with move to Office 365

Th new tweaks include 13 new themes, Clutter and search U

Microsoft has announced a new-look Outlook.comas it prepares to move the service to its Office 365 productivity suite.

Microsoft is taking personalisation seriously in this update, adding 13 new themes for the email application and learning what you want to see and what you don’t.

“Your inbox is part of your daily routine. It’s where you keep in touch with family and friends, check the shipping status of packages and find deals from your favourite companies. These new inbox features are aimed at creating a richer and more engaging inbox, while maintaining the same look and feel you love,” the company said in a blog post.

This first new feature is called Clutter and it will sort your inbox into the emails you normally ignore (the clutter) and those you want to read, which it will surface in the main inbox. Any emails it thinks are clutter will be moved into a separate folder. You can move emails you want to see out of the clutter and in time, the machine will get to know exactly what should be in each mailbox.

Search has also been boosted in the latest iteration of Outlook. If you start searching for a particular email, the application will highlight emails from the people you email most often when searching for content. Refiners helps you filter out the irrelevant content by allowing you to search based on sender, folder, date, and attachments.

For those who are sent lots of videos or richer content, Microsoft has implemented a link preview function that will show a snippet of the link’s content when yu open the email. If you send a lot of images, you can now just copy and paste these directly into the body of an email.

Messages can be popped out in a new windows, to make it easy for you to compose more than one email at once and add-ins allow you to see information while you’re writing an email so you don’t have to keep switching whole apps.

You can also now pin the most important of your emails to the top of your inbox so they’re always there when you need them and flags mean you can mark messages for following up later.

Microsoft also announced the ability to switch between email and Skype easily if you want to take a conversation into IM mode and better sharing with OneDrive.

The Outlook update has been rolled out to select users as a preview already, but made available to others in the coming weeks, the company said.

Have Questions?
Contact Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Partner now!
Call 856-745-9990 or visit: http://southjerseytechies.net/

Improved Outlook for Office365

Office 365 has recently improved the user interface as well as, the included social and communication features. Outlook starts in the now-familiar three-pane view, but without the ribbon menus of the full Outlook 2013.

Navigation pane is located on the left of the screen. To create, rename, empty or delete folders can be done with a right-click on the specific folder.

Tasks can be accessed through the Task tab at the bottom of the Navigation Pane. Using color-coordinated icons can easily categorize tasks. Also, flagged e-mails will show up in the general task list.

The View Pane is located on the right side of the screen. In the view pane there are options to Reply, Delete and more options (…). Deleting, printing and creating simple rules are located in the ‘More Options’ drop down menu. For full control of creating/editing rules, setting automated replies or creating retension policies select Options in the Settings menu.

Your IM status will show next to the account name at the top of the screen. The IM that is offered as part of Outlook is different than Microsoft Lync. Microsoft Lync is used for chat, audio/video chat and meetings with anyone, within or outside of your organization.

For more information on Hosted Services & Office365

please contact us 856-745-9990 or click here.

Office 365: New capabilities for iPad and iPhone

New features make Office and OneDrive the best place to work on iPad and iPhone

More and more, people around the world are working on the go, changing locations and devices as they create and collaborate with others throughout their day. As they work across their PCs, Macs and mobile devices, they expect an uncompromising experience that is familiar yet optimized for the device they are using.

Microsoft is committed to providing best in class experiences on all devices, and today, we are proud to share with you a set of new Office capabilities across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneDrive on iOS that will delight and make iPad and iPhone users more productive than ever before.

Real-time co-authoring in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on iOS – We live in a world where we’re often collaborating with multiple people in different locations and Office 365 provides the broadest and deepest toolkit for collaboration between individuals, teams, and entire organizations. Using real-time co-authoring, colleagues, friends, and family can contribute to and edit documents simultaneously in the Word, Excel and PowerPoint iOS apps. This allows you to know who else is working with you in a document, see where they’re working, and view changes automatically within seconds. The co-authoring experiences are also available in Office Online and the latest versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint on the PC and Mac, all made possible by storing your documents in OneDrive or SharePoint.

Drag and drop files anywhere with OneDrive – Sometimes your files can get scattered between different folders or even services and applications. Now it’s easier than ever to organize and rearrange your files. You can drag files in between folders in OneDrive and, if your teammates use SharePoint to work together, you can even drag OneDrive files to a SharePoint site giving them immediate access. On iPad, you can also drag files from other apps, such as iMessage, into your OneDrive and drag files out of your OneDrive to other apps.

Drag and drop content between Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneDrive on iPad – One of the most common and powerful tasks when creating content is pulling in text, photos, graphs, and other objects from different sources. Now you can pull in content with ease on your iPad with drag and drop support in Office and OneDrive. Easily drag and drop objects from OneDrive or from one Office app to another.

OneDrive Files app support – Today we’re also announcing native support for the Files app in iOS 11. OneDrive integration with the Files app allows you to access, upload, edit, and save your content to OneDrive or SharePoint from apps that support Files app integration. You can also tag and favorite your OneDrive and SharePoint files from within the Files app.

OneDrive redesigned to find the files that matter – The OneDrive iOS app has been redesigned from the ground up with a new layout that uses your screen space more efficiently allowing you to find your files faster. It’s easier to scan across file names, see the information that matters to you, and sort files how you want. New metadata is visible in the list view, so you can easily identify new files and files that have been shared.

Universal link support for shared files – Being able to seamlessly share and securely access files is essential for teamwork. Previously when you received a link to a shared file, you would be directed to a browser and prompted to re-authenticate. Today, we are announcing universal link support, which will open the document directly in the Word, Excel, or PowerPoint iOS apps. Further, if you don’t have a supporting application for the file, you’ll be directed to the OneDrive app to preview the file.

Preview 130+ file types in your OneDrive app – You and the people you work with use a variety of different file formats, but when you’re on your mobile device you might not have access to the native applications for those files. Now, the OneDrive iOS app creates crisp thumbnails and supports large previews of over 130 file types, including Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, RAW, 3D objects, and high-precision DICOM images. OneDrive lets you open, view, and share all of your files without leaving the app.

New accessibility features for Word, Excel and PowerPoint on iOS 11
The VoiceOver rotor in iOS improves navigation and the accessibility of content. For example, you can use the built-in rotor on iOS to navigate line-by-line or word-by-word and change the speed at which VoiceOver speaks. The new Office-specific rotors also let people with vision impairments navigate more efficiently in Word across tables and links, slides in PowerPoint, and sheets in Excel.

Users can also leverage larger text options in accessibility settings to modify the text size in the core Office apps. Visit the support pages for Excel, Word, and PowerPoint to learn more.

You can use take advantage of these new capabilities in the coming days by updating the Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneDrive apps in the Apple App Store.

Save Face at Work with Outlook

1. Save face with MailtipsHave you ever hit “Reply All” to an email when you didn’t mean to? Or sent important information to someone and never gotten a response, only to learn later their email address was invalid? Microsoft Exchange 2010 and MailTips, a new Microsoft Outlook 2010 feature, can help prevent embarrassing mistakes, save you time, and alleviate frustration.Learn more: Turn on or off MailTips
2. Share your scheduleYou can share your calendar with others on a Microsoft Exchange Server—with permission, of course. Or you can publish your default Outlook 2010 to the web, which can allow more people to view it. If you publish your calendar to the web, you don’t have to have an Exchange account, and anyone can see it, even if they don’t have an Exchange account, either.Learn more: Introduction to calendar sharing
3. Stop repeating yourselfDo you do a lot of the same things over and over with emails? Like frequently move messages to a specific folder that you’ve set up? Or often forward messages to your team? Quick Steps in Outlook 2010 can help by turning commands and procedures that you use most often into one click actions.Learn more: Automate common or repetitive tasks with Quick Steps
4. Get in on the conversation—and manage itAt work you may often have conversations over email, where several people are weighing in on important issues. Have you ever missed someone’s response in one of these email conversations? Now you can see your email within the context of the conversation, with Conversation View. See the overall conversation, including your responses, find the most recent response, and easily figure out the message that is most important to you.Learn more: View email messages by conversation
5. Get in on the conversation—and ignore itMaybe you are no longer needed in an ongoing email conversation—or maybe the subject matter is no longer important to you. Whatever the reason, you can prevent additional responses from appearing in your inbox. The Ignore command moves the whole conversation and any future messages that arrive in the conversation to the Deleted Items folder.Learn more: Ignore all email messages in a conversation
6. Let colleagues know when you aren’t aroundIf you’re going to be heading out on vacation or even just away for the day, you can let your colleagues know your schedule and when they can expect to hear from you again. Customize automatic responses to emails you receive whenever you are unavailable.Learn more: Automatically reply to email messages with an Exchange account.
7. Protect what you sendIt’s easy to communicate with pretty much anyone via email. But there are times when you don’t want email you send to be forwarded to others, or printed out, or copied. You can use Information Rights Management (IRM) to help prevent sensitive email from being read, printed, forwarded, or copied by unauthorized people.Learn more: Introduction to IRM for email messages
8. Have it all in one place—and hear it, tooWith Unified Messaging (UM), you can receive email, voice, and fax messages in your Outlook Inbox. If you have an Exchange Server 2010 account, you can get Voice Mail Preview, which delivers both a recording and text that’s been created from the voice recording using automatic speech recognition.Learn more: Introduction to Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging
9. Contact info is at your fingertipsThanks to the Microsoft Outlook Global Address List (GAL), you no longer have to keep your contacts’ information stored on your computer–where it takes up space and gets out of date before you can manually update it. The Global Address List (GAL) tracks it all for you: phone numbers, building location, email addresses, and more.
10. Make sure they get itNeed to make sure your boss reads an email that you send her? Want to get your team to vote on their favorite restaurant for your team outing? You can add many different types of tracking to your email messages, including delivery and read receipts, voting buttons and follow-up actions.Learn more: Add tracking to email messages
11. Meet anywhere, anytimeGrab them for a meeting–just once or every week–find a meeting room, and even schedule meetings in a different time zone. Clicking the New Meeting button gives you access to everything you need to set up meetings with one or many.Learn more: Schedule a meeting with other people
12. Let someone else mind your calendarYou need to hand over your scheduling responsibilities to someone else—for just a bit, or for a good while. Or maybe you need to manage someone else’s schedule. The Delegate Access feature in Outlook lets meeting requests be received, accepted, and even sent for you by someone else.Learn more: Delegate access: Let someone else mind your calendar
13. Check email from any computerDon’t worry about dragging your laptop with you everywhere you go anymore: You can access your email from any computer connected to the Internet using any major web browser—even if it doesn’t have Microsoft Outlook on it. Outlook Web App (OWA) is a web-based version of Outlook that lets you access and send email, manage your calendar, and more.Learn more: Outlook Web App in Exchange 2010
14. It’s on your phone!Did we say forget about dragging your laptop with you? Well, forget about even needing to have a computer—Windows Phone 7 automatically comes with Office Mobile so you can check and send email, update your calendar, and keep on top of all that you need to.Learn more: Office Mobile site
15. No more extra gearIt used to be that when you were outside of your organization’s firewall, like when you were working from home or traveling, you’d need to log in to Outlook using a virtual private network (VPN) connection, which often required a smartcard or special tokens. Now Outlook offers Outlook Anywhere, an alternative to VPN connections that lets you use Outlook just as you normally do at your organization, without the need for special connections or hardware.Learn more: Use Outlook Anywhere to connect to your Exchange Server without a VPN

Set Up Microsoft Exchange E-Mail on iPhone

Set Up Microsoft Exchange E-Mail on an Apple iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch

You can set up Exchange e-mail on an Apple iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. When you set up an Exchange account on your device, you’ll be able to access and synchronize your e-mail, calendar, and contacts. If you have a different device, or if you want to connect using POP or IMAP.

How do I set up Microsoft Exchange e-mail on an Apple iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch?

Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account.
Tap Microsoft Exchange.
You don’t need to enter anything in the Domain box. Enter the information requested in the Email,Username, and Password boxes. You need to enter your full e-mail address in the Email and Usernameboxes (for example, tony@contoso.com).
Tap Next on the upper-right corner of the screen. Your iPhone will try to find the settings it needs to set up your account. Go to step 7 if your iPhone finds your settings.
If your iPhone can’t find your settings, you’ll need to manually look up your Exchange ActiveSync server name. For instructions for how to determine your Exchange ActiveSync server name, see the Finding My Server Name section below.
In the Server box, enter your server name, and then tap Next.

Choose the type of information you want to synchronize between your account and your device, and then touch Save. By default, Mail, Contacts, and Calendar information are synchronized.

Caution:
If you’re prompted to create a passcode, tap Continue and enter a numeric passcode. If you don’t set up a passcode, you can’t view your e-mail account on your iPhone. You can set up a passcode later in iPhone Settings.

Finding My Server Name

If your email program isn’t able to automatically find your Exchange ActiveSync server name, you may need to look it up.

Sign in to your e-mail account using Outlook Web App. For help signing in, see How to Sign In to Outlook Web App.
If you’re connecting to an Exchange mailbox, your Exchange ActiveSync server name is contained in the address bar in your browser when you are signed in to Outlook Web App, but without the leadinghttps:// and without the trailing /owa. For example, if the address you use to access Outlook Web App is https://mail.contoso.com/owa, your Exchange ActiveSync server name is mail.contoso.com.
If you’re unable to connect to your mailbox using the information earlier in this section, you can try using the server name value that you can view in Outlook Web App options. Do the following:
1. In Outlook Web App, click Options > See All Options > Account > My Account > Settings for POP, IMAP, and SMTP access.
  
  Note:
  
  Although you’re not setting up a POP3 account, you will use this value to determine your Exchange ActiveSync server name.
2. Under POP setting, view the value for Server name.
3. Try setting up your email using the server name listed on your options page. For example if the value for Server name under POP setting is mail.contoso.com, try using mail.contoso.com as your Exchange server name.

Note:
Although you’re not setting up a POP3 account, you will use this value to determine your Exchange ActiveSync server name.

What else do I need to know?

If you’re prompted to create a passcode and don’t create one, you won’t be able to send and receive e-mail.

South Jersey Techies – Managed Services for Businesses

If you’re tired of the break and fix relationship you have with technology, and would like a proactive approach for keeping your business running smoothly…

South Jersey Techies, LLC offers complete Flat Rate IT management solutions that take the hassle out of managing and maintaining your critical IT systems. We’ll customize a managed services support plan that is tailored to your environment and meets and exceeds the specific needs for your technology management and support.

What is Managed IT Services?

Managed IT Services is a new solution to an old problem. Instead of the traditional pay to fix a problem as it happens, you pay one consistent monthly price and your computers, servers and network are continuously and proactively kept running efficiently.

Automate IT Actions

Being more productive and proactive brings more success in your business. Automation is the key to increase productivity. Maximize your IT budget and staff by offloading routine IT functions to South Jersey Techies, LLC.

South Jersey Techies, LLC is always working to provide you with the tools you need to control cost, maintain continuity, and manage change in your evolving business environment.

Cut Operational Cost

Our Managed Services enable you to focus more on your business while South Jersey Techies, LLC proactively manages and monitors your data, security and voice networks.

South Jersey Techies automates your repeated activities such as updating antivirus definitions, upgrading Internet Explorer, installing software, executing scripts, etc. and helps you to concentrate on things that offer more value to your business.

Automation drives to cut down operational costs and achieve higher profits. Our Operations Center will proactively monitor the desktops, servers and applications for availability and performance and reduce down times of business critical applications.

Office 2016 Preview

Office 2016 Preview for existing Office 365 subscribers

For enterprise

Office 365 administrators with an Office 365 ProPlus subscription can now enable the Office 2016 Preview for their organization by turning on First Release. Learn how to turn on First Release.

Once First Release is turned on, users can install the Office 2016 Preview.

Enabled Office 365 ProPlus users

1. Sign in to the My Software page.

2. Go to Try the next version of Office.

3. Click Install. office2016

This will install the Office 2016 Preview on your device.

Note Enabled Office 365 ProPlus users can follow the same process above to install the Project 2016 Preview and the Visio 2016 Preview. On your Software page, select Project or Visio from the Software list. If Project and Visio are not listed, they are not included with your subscription.

Not ready to join First Release? You can still get the Office 2016 Preview,find out how.

For home

Go to the Office M Account page.
Click Language and install options.
Click Additional install options.
Open the Version drop-down menu and select the 32-bit or 64-bit Office 2016 Preview.

This will install the Office 2016 Preview on your device. You will stay on the Office 2016 Preview track until you uninstall the Office 2016 Preview or until Office 2016 is released.

Customize Outlook’s To-Do Bar

Three tips for making Outlook’s To-Do bar work for you

Takeaway: If you’re tempted to hide Outlook’s new To-Do bar, stop! Customize it and put it to work for you.

Outlook 2007 introduced the To-Do bar -a means of tracking appointments and tasks with a quick glance. The To-Do bar shows a Date Navigator with upcoming appointments and a list of tasks, but some users don’t take full advantage of it.

Most users spend most of their time in their Mail window and having quick access to other features, via the To-Do bar, without leaving their Inbox is not only convenient, it’s efficient. For instance, the Date Navigator displays upcoming appointments without opening your Calendar. If you decide to open your Calendar, simply click a date. You can also add new tasks, accept or decline meetings, and so on. These three tips will help you learn your way around so that you can customize the feature to suit your work habits.

1: Don’t dismiss it

Outlook displays the full bar, but you can free up space by collapsing it – don’t delete it! To minimize the bar, click the arrow in the top-left corner. You can then expand and collapse the bar, to suit your needs.

2: Customize the settings

To change the default arrangement of the Date Navigator, appointments, and tasks, right-click the To-Do bar’s header. At this point, you can also turn off the display for all three To-Do bar components, but don’t to so right now. Instead, choose Options. In the resulting dialog box, you can determine the display options that work best for you. For example, you can display more than one month, hide private items, and so on.

3: Customize the Task list

Most of us will use the Task list more than the other two components, so getting this part right will really make you happy. To customize the Task list component, right-click the column header area (Arrange By) and choose View Settings (Custom in Outlook 2007). In the resulting dialog box, you can customize the task features you see. For instance, you might click Columns to add icons to the display. Or, you might want to remove the Follow Up flags.

To display more information about each task, change the single line display. Right-click the column header as before and choose View Settings (or Custom). Click Column and change this setting using the Maximum Number Of Lines dropdown.

You can temporarily filter the tasks you see by clicking the Filter button and entering specific words or choosing existing text from the dropdown. Doing so will display only those tasks that meet your criteria.

I’ve mentioned just a few of the more popular ways to customize the To-Do bar. The key to getting the most out of this feature is to explore its settings and put them to work for you!

Alternatives to Microsoft Office

Takeaway: Microsoft Office is not the only game in town; South Jersey Techies suggests some suitable alternatives for Microsoft Office.

Although Microsoft Office is one of the most popular productivity suites available, it is far from being the only choice available. Here are five alternatives to Microsoft Office that you might consider the next time you are looking to purchase an office suite.

1. Google Docs

Google Docs is a cloud based productivity suite that lets you create word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings. Because Google Docs is a browser based application, it isn’t quite as full featured as some of the other productivity suites. Even so, Google Docs is free, and there is nothing to install on your computer. The interface is completely intuitive and Google Docs can be used to create and edit Microsoft Office documents.

2. LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free productivity suite that is designed to act as an alternative to Microsoft Office. Like Apache Open Office, Libre Office offers a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation application, a drawing tool, and a database application. In fact, the launch screen is nearly identical to that of Apache Open Office. The reason for this is that in 2010 some of the OpenOffice developers broke away from OpenOffice and created LibreOffice. As such, there are a lot of similarities between the two suites. LibreOffice even supports the use of OpenOffice documents.

3. Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012

Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012 is, as the name implies, a free office suite. The free version includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a presentation application. These applications look and feel like Office 2010 applications, and the software fully supports the use of Office documents in addition to its own native file format. Also supported are standard file types such as RTF, TXT, and HTML.

4. Apache Open Office

Apache Open Office is a free office suite that can trace its roots back for well over a decade. This open source suite contains utilities for creating text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, and formulas. Open Office should be easy to use for anyone who is familiar with Office 2010. The word processor and spreadsheet look a lot like Word and Excel. The presentation application looks different than PowerPoint, but contains familiar controls. The suite is capable of opening (and saving) Microsoft Office documents and other common file formats.

5. Office Web App

The Microsoft Office Web Apps are an alternative to an on-premise Microsoft Office deployment. This free suite of cloud apps includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Furthermore, you get 7 GB of free storage space on SkyDrive, which is useful for storing your Office Web App documents. Office Web App that isn’t quite as full featured as Office 2010 or Office 2013, but Microsoft does have the basics covered. Besides, it is hard to argue with the price, which is free.