Decoding Office Build Numbers

Article Sourced from below URL :

-> http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/11/11/491779.aspx

"Open the About dialog box in any Office program. Near the top, you'll find the build number of the program you're using.

If you are using Office 2003, you'll probably see something like 11.5608.5606. If you are using Office 12, you might see something like 12.0.3417.1005. In earlier versions, you'll see something similar.

While these numbers may look like unintelligible garbage, in reality they can be used to tell interesting information about the version of Office you're using.

Numbers...

In Office 2003, the "11" that precedes the build number is simply to denote that Office 2003 was version 11 of Office. Similarly, the 12 in Office "12" means... well, you get it. Office XP was version 10, Office 2000 was version 9, Office 97 was version 8. You get the idea.

The most interesting thing to watch for is the first 4-digit number you encounter. In the examples above, 5608 and 3417. These are what we refer to as the "build number." Every few days during the development cycle, we compile all of the code in Office and turn it into a "build": essentially an installable version of all the work everyone's done up until that point. Eventually, a build becomes "final" and that is the one that ends up on CDs and in the store.

The 4-digit build number is actually an encoded date which allows you tell when a build was born. The algorithm works like this:

• Take the year in which a project started. For Office "12", that was 2003.
• Call January of that year "Month 1."
• The first two digits of the build number are the number of months since "Month 1."
• The last two digits are the day of that month.

So, if you have build 3417, you would do the following math: "Month 1" was January 2003. "Month 13" was January 2004. "Month 25" was January 2005. Therefore, "Month 34" would be October 2005.

3417 = October 17, 2005, which was the date on which Office 12 build 3417 started.

For Office 2003 and XP both, "Month 1" was January 2000. So, the final build of Office 2003, 5608, was made on August 8, 2003.

If you look at Office 2003 build numbers, you will see two four-digit numbers, separated by a period. The first of the two numbers represents the build number for the program you're using (such as Outlook.) The second of the two numbers represents the build number for the core Office shared library (called MSO), which is shared by all programs.

The Office 12 dialog boxes actually show the application and MSO build numbers separately--they're both even labeled so that it's easy to tell them apart. The Office 12-style build numbers (12.0.3417.1005) reveal another internal artifact of the way we do builds--something we call "dot builds."

Sometimes it's necessary to have two kinds of builds going on at once within the Office team. Recently, our build lab has been making both "Beta 1" builds and "Beta 2" builds. In order to ship a stable Beta 1, we have slowed the rate of code changes dramatically and concentrated on just crucial bug fixes. At the same time, we need a place to check in all of the other work people are doing for Beta 2--but we can't have those changes coming in and wrecking the stability of Beta 1 at the last minute.

The solution? The build lab makes two kinds of builds at once. A specific build number is chosen, and that build "becomes" Beta 1. In this case, 3417. That doesn't mean that Beta 1 is done however. As bug fixes are checked in, we make new versions of the 3417 build, each one with an increasing number as a suffix, separated by a period. (A so-called "dot" build.) So there would be a 3417.1, 3417.2, 3417.3, and so on until Beta 1 is ready to ship. Subtract 1000 from the second 4-digit number in the About box to find the "dot build" number. In the above example, 3417.1005 is the 5th "dot" build of our Beta 1 branch.

At the same time, the build lab continues to churn out Beta 2 builds on the normal daily schedule: 3423, 3425, etc. So, internally, we can tell which build is which kind by the number it has.

Last point: once a product ships, the rules for build numbers become even more complicated and different. So, if you have Service Pack 2 for Office 2003, you might see a nonsensical number like 6552 or something. Don't worry about it, it's not tied directly to a date in the same way anymore.

Armed with this knowledge, you're ready to amaze the world with your secret ability to decode Office build numbers."

The Best Outlook Feature Ever

Article quoted from below URL :
* http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/11/30/498364.aspx

"Here's an Outlook party trick suitable for cruise ships, family reunions, and kids birthday parties.

Up until now this secret trick has been known only to Outlook insiders--a kind of "secret handshake" passed through the generations of Outlook team members. Every few years ago someone files a bug on it and it is quickly closed by an elder.

Today, I pass it along to you to enjoy. I believe it works in all versions of Outlook. Do all of these steps in a row; don't ever click away from the sticky note once you do the first step or it won't work.

• Create a new sticky note (File | New | Note or Ctrl+Shift+N will do the trick.)
  
• Type some text in the note (anything will do, it doesn't have to be long.)
  
• Drag the note around the screen for a while (you can move it via the title bar just like a normal window.)
  
• Now, for the big trick: Press CTRL+Z.
  
• Sit back and enjoy the show.
  
• You can keep pressing CTRL+Z again and again to reverse the process.

For extra bonus points, along with moving the window around, try resizing it and (in Outlook 2003 and earlier) changing its color via the icon in the upper-left hand corner.

(The good news is that all the memory used is reclaimed when you close the sticky note.)

Thanks be to that ancient developer who, in his wisdom, persisted every change of position, size, and color in the undo stack. Many hours of fun have resulted from his work.

Super extra bonus points: Write your name on the screen using the sticky note. Hint: you need to drag it over the Outlook window."

Famous Quotes from Equally Famous People !!

"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite." - Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays, 1928.

"He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder." - M. C. Escher

"When I started programming, we didn't have any of these sissy 'icons' and 'windows'... all we had were zeros and ones - and sometimes we didn't even have ones." - Scott Adams (Dilbert)

"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler." - Albert Einstein

"If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't." - (unknown)

"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue." - Winston Churchill

"Time is God's way of keeping everything from happening at once." - (unknown)

"I know perfectly well that I don't want to do anything; to do something is to create existence - and there's quite enough existence as it is." - Jean-Paul Sartre

"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time." - Abraham Lincoln

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

"Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast or of one thing too exclusively" - Voltaire

"People tell you to give them your two cents worth, then they say they want a penny for your thoughts. Somewhere someone's making a penny" - Steven Wright

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein

"There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about." - John von Neumann

"Absence of proof is not proof of absence." - Michael Crichton

"I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them." - Isaac Asimov

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying." - Woody Allen

"E pur si muove! But it does move!" - Galileo Galilei, according to legend, muttered under his breath after being forced to declare that the Earth always remains still.

"Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent." - Jean Kerr

"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of." - Clarence Darrow

"The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." - Eden Phillpotts