I have a new computer which came with Windows XP and Office 2007 Small Business Edition pre-installed. However, the spell checker only checks French spelling and it is impossible to change to English (UK). The only Microsoft solutions to this bug which I've seen are either: 1. Use a different e-mail program such as Windows Live Mail, or 2. Download a third party spell checker. This bug is of Microsoft's own creation (a consequence of Office 2007) and I expect Microsoft to provide an 'official' fix. When will that be? I don't particularly like Windows Live Mail and the only third party spell checkers I can find seem to offer only English (US), not the Queen's English! Will this Microsoft bug be fixed in Office 2010? 2 people need an answerI do too

This bug is of Microsoft's own creation (a consequence of Office 2007) and I expect Microsoft to provide an 'official' fix. When will that be? I don't particularly like Windows Live Mail and the only third party spell checkers I can find seem to offer only English (US), not the Queen's English! Will this Microsoft bug be fixed in Office 2010? It will never be fixed. Short story. The OE development team in years past used to make sure new Office programs were compatible with OE. However, the OE team was disbanded in June, 2006 and production of OE was officially declared dead. Hence, no one to make suer the spell check in Office 2007 would be compatible. MS does not care about OE. It even abandoned Windows Mail in Vista at the same time when Vista was still in Beta. There are other options for this new computer. Australian English Spell Check (Also suitable for other English speaking countries.) http://www.justlocal.com.au/clients/oespellcheck/ If you have a previous version of Office, see this: http://www.outlook-tips.net/archives/2006/20061228.htm Use WLMail instead of OE. It is the successor to OE and Windows Mail and does have its own spell check and UK English is among the choices. Windows Live Mail (Overview, Features & Download): http://get.live.com/wlmail/overviewBruce Hagen ~ MS-MVP [Mail]

Hi Bruce, Thanks for your response. To be honest, it reflects very badly on Microsoft that they lack the corporate integrity to resolve a bug of their own creation. The Office 2007 team should have ensured that their new baby was fully compatible with other Microsoft applications. If there was any sense of customer service, Bill Gates would be ringing the team leader to say "You caused this, you fix it. Today will do fine...!" I'm struggling with WLM. It is nothing like as easy to use as OE6 and has already lost several of my e-mails when I tried to 'move to folder'. However, I'll try downloading the Aussie spell check for OE6 as well. I've still got my Office 2003 SBE disks from a previous computer which has now died - I suppose it would breach some licence agreement if I tried to install it on my new computer.....

I am no advocate for MS, (MVPs are all volunteers), but they aren't going to fix a bug in a program that is dead. I myself have never used any Office programs, ( I prefer Corel), so I have always used a third party spell check with OE. Not everyone has Office. IMO. if there was any bug, it was that OE never had its own spell check. As var as using the Office 2003 CD, I believe you are allowed to use it on 2 or 3 machines? (you would probably know better than I). You're only using the proofing tools anyway. In the three years since this issue first started, I have not seen one mention of anything illegal about doing this.Bruce Hagen ~ MS-MVP [Mail]

Well, the Aussie spellchecker arrived, unzipped and installed very easily. So now I've gone back to OE6 with a UK English spellchecker and have made it my default e-mail program. I'll wait until Microsoft fix the 'losing e-mails' bug in WLM before using it again........