Paul Edden Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 (gets on to soapbox) I have just spent a whole afternoon trying to get in touch with someone at Microsoft who can help explain why the £599.99 version of MS Visio Professional I have downloaded will not work on my Windows 8 laptop. This is the second time I have purchased and downloaded - first time from Amazon - would not work so I thinks I will get a refund and go to MS direct. Downloaded that one - exactly the same problem!!!!!!!! Why cant you walk into a shop and buy a disc anymore Why all this "talk to the cloud" rubbish Why do you get transferred from one department to the other - and have to explain each time "what is the problem", "what is your name", "What is your phone number" bla bla bla bla bl**** bla. You would think Microsoft would have a system that records this once and passes it on? I just want to draw a bl**** process map....AAAAAAAARGGGHGHHHGGGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHHHHHHHHH Feel better now. (puts soapbox away) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dommo Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 What's the problem you're getting? Think I've got it on my windows 8 PC so presumably it can be fixed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Edden Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 Download was fine - opens up ok - you can creat a "new chart" - all ok so far. When the new chart is open - all the options (such as bold text, insert chart etc) are greyed out. When you eventually get something like a box into the chart is seems to lock up. It's like the old days of waiting for your pc to catch up when we used to access the internet via dial-up!! Something to do with this flaming "cloud" working I think........ BTW - our www in the office is currently running 6.4 meg - just checked it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Don't bet on it... We're refusing to supply any MS Office product to clients now, unless it's on a commercial volume license. We had a horrendous experience the other year with the current individual product licensing system; cost us a four figure amount for multiple copies of Project. Supplied correctly and legitimately as a reseller. The .licensing system kept breaking down and once the product was shown (in-correctly) as licensed, that was it, no one including Microsoft could or would do anything about it. As for refunds, don't get me started! MS refer us to the distributor, the distributor refers us to MS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Edden Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 Welcome to my afternoon Dave!!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Edden Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 Just getting it refunded now!! Anyone got any alternative suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Loudon - Sponsorship Liaison Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 HAve you activated it wuv? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Had the same problem with photoshop , all options , drop downs etc all greyed out until I registered the product ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Edden Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 Thanks for the comments - yes, it was activated, registered and all the other crap associated with it. I have had it refunded now - so am looking for an alternative piece of software which comes on a CD that I can plug into the laptop!!!!!! All I want to do is draw some flaming flowcharts and create swimlanes - almost quicker to buy some squared graph paper and a set of coloured pencils!!! Any suggestions oh wise crazy car drivers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Banks Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 OpenOffice.org....? https://www.openoffice.org/product/draw.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John K Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Assuming you have Office installed... How complex are the process maps and the CFDs (Cross Functional Diagrams (I refuse to use the word swimlane since my American colleagues fell in love with it...)? Whilst it not the right tool, the latest version of PPT is surprisingly good at these sort of diagrams if you keep the right stuff on top and push all the other junk to the back. I've been using Visio for donkeys and used to love it, but MS has to tinker with stuff to justify the upgrades and it has became an over complex PITA... I only use it when I have too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Algar - Competition Secretary Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 OpenOffice.org....? https://www.openoffice.org/product/draw.html Been wondering about using that for a while now. Trouble is so many people seem to use Microsoft stuff. How do you find it works in practice when you need to share Spreadsheets etc ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhett Turner - Black Country AO Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 have a look at this it may help (some Visio Alternatives) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tisme Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Been wondering about using that for a while now. Trouble is so many people seem to use Microsoft stuff. How do you find it works in practice when you need to share Spreadsheets etc ? I use OpenOffice on my laptop all the time (but Office 2003 on the desktop) as I wasn't prepared to pay MS's extortionate licence fees (OO is free of course) - it looks and feels much the same as MS Office and you can save the various files in Office formats and they're perfectly interchangeable with Office. The only difference we've found is on the Spreadsheet functions and the use of the more complex macros (MS use Visual Basic code, but of course OO can't, so they have a slightly similar "open" language but really, you have to learn it and code the macro's from scratch again). OO is now managed by Apache (rather than SUN/Oracle) so it should remain open and free for the foreseeable future - give it a go, it's really rather good . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Algar - Competition Secretary Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 I use OpenOffice on my laptop all the time (but Office 2003 on the desktop) as I wasn't prepared to pay MS's extortionate licence fees (OO is free of course) - it looks and feels much the same as MS Office and you can save the various files in Office formats and they're perfectly interchangeable with Office. The only difference we've found is on the Spreadsheet functions and the use of the more complex macros (MS use Visual Basic code, but of course OO can't, so they have a slightly similar "open" language but really, you have to learn it and code the macro's from scratch again). OO is now managed by Apache (rather than SUN/Oracle) so it should remain open and free for the foreseeable future - give it a go, it's really rather good . Thanks, I will give it a go. The Microsoft monopoly had been bugging me for a which Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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