Thanks to slimy & nshahzad for posting this and many others who submitted this to our newsdesk.
Microsoft will release a Technical Refresh build (4407.1005) for Office 2007 Beta 2 today. The UI is at lockdown after about 1000 changes to the ribbon and a new silver scheme. Anything after this will be bug fixes.
B2TR is compatible with Windows Vista RC1 and comes in 5 languages: English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese. The Technical Refresh will be available for public download at a cost of $1.50. This fee is requested in order for Microsoft to be able to pay for bandwidth and shipping costs.
Jensen Harris has posted many performance and reliability improvements:
- Improved Ribbon (nearly 1000 changes)
- Top-left redesign of the programs (File Menu)
- Double-click the office button to close the window
- Silver color scheme
- Redesign of the PowerPoint Home tab
- Improvements to default styles for all objects (pictures, tables, charts, SmartArt, headers, footers, etc.)
- New Icons for all the products
- Usability improvements to the Office menu
- Send button in the form in Outlook
- Standard Edition ($399 USD)
- Professional Edition ($499 USD)
- Ultimate Edition ($679 USD)