Newsletter Archives

• A much better way to manage Excel formulas

  Posted on January 20, 2025 at 02:43 CST by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Excel’s Advanced Formula Environment (AFE) is something that, once you get it, you will wonder how you lived without it.

  AFE gives a Visual Studio–like view of a formula and named elements, which is so much better than the formula bar.

  Even a simple formula can be hard to understand, especially if you didn’t write the formula in the first place.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.03.0, 2025-01-20).

  Microsoft 365 Advanced Formula Environment, AFE, Excel, Formulas, Microsoft Office, Newsletters, Python

• My 2023 rear-view mirror and 2024 crystal ball

  Posted on December 26, 2023 at 02:45 CST by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 20.52 • 2023-12-26

  Look for our BONUS issue on January 1, 2024! Happy New Year!

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Let’s first check the 2023 rear-view mirror to see what good, and not-so-good, things happened with Microsoft 365.

  I’ll look at just some of the changes, perhaps not the most-hyped-but-possibly-overlooked ones in the never-ending road that is Microsoft marketing. Then I’ll peer over the steering wheel to see what will or might happen in 2024.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.52.0, 2023-12-26).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Microsoft 365 Aptos, Excel, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Designer, Newsletters, Office 2016, Office 2019, Office 2021, Outlook (new), Python, Windows Copilot

• Python programmers: Watch out for Win10 version 1903

  Posted on November 14, 2019 at 07:07 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  We had a report a few hours ago from MartinPurvis that performing an in-place upgrade from Win10 version 1803 to version 1903 clobbered Python:

  Turns out that a user path variable is added to the top of the environment variable list which gives priority to a 0kb python.exe inside the Windows Apps AppData instead of using the user defined python directory before the in-place upgrade.

  Looking around the web, I see that’s a common complaint. Poster Ac3_DeXt3R on SuperUser says:

  On typing “python” from search, opens the Python 2.7 prompt but when I type from command prompt window, it triggers the Microsoft Store.

  Poster ecool on the Microsoft Answers forum said, back in May:

  Windows 10 is using the System Environment variables over my User Environment. So just ordering the Python location to the top of the System Environment Path variable worked to remove the annoyance of trying to run python and it opening to the Windows Store.

  Back on the SuperUser site, Ramhound says:

  This was intended behavior. Microsoft added this behavior with 1903 because they recognized developers struggle getting Python installed. I read about this change but I don’t recall where I read it.

  I can’t find the original description Ramhound describes. Can anybody out there point me to it?

  Windows 10 Releases Environmental variables, Python, Win10 1903