I installed Office 2004 today (we have a campus license at work, I’m not giving any money to Microsoft) and mouse wheel scrolling in Word is so broken that it’s unusable. Scrolling up works as it should but scrolling down...

Group items by: Subject

Sort groups by: Sent, Newest on top

Sort items within group by: Sent, Newest on top

Default display for groups: Expanded

I figured out how to get the behavior You and I wanted, but it isn't as strait forward as it should be. First, I chose View -> Arrange By -> Edit Custom Arrangements. The Custom Arrangements: Mail window opens.

From here I can click New, give it a title and set the group arrangement to Date Received. In the Third menu, I chose Newest On Top. This sets it to the way it has been all along - sorting the items in the group by Date Sent, Oldest on Top! When I tell it to sort the items in the group, Date Received is disabled. Why? Because I used it to sort the group.* Well I found an alternative that appears to give me the correct behavior - most of the time. Sort items in group by Priority, with Highest on top.

Now that I've created a custom Arrangement, I can choose View -> Arrange By -> <title of custom arrangement I set above>. Since I almost never get email with a non-normal priority, my email sorts as expected - most recently received email on top. If I do get a higher than normal priority email, it'll find itself sorted to the top of the group (not that big of a deal) and if it's a lower priority email, I'll never see it because it will jump to the bottom of the group.

*Microsoft just loves to provide me with roadblocks! I wonder what the logic is behind preventing me from sorting the items in a group in the same order as the group itself is...

i also don't like how it has a half version of most of the apple iApps. it kind of has a calendar, kind of an address book and kind does email. I just think it is totally icky and to be avoided. if you need a good mail program and you are going to be paying for it i would think mailsmith would be the way to go, especially if you like bbedit. I try to avoid carbon apps like the plague if there is a cocoa alternative.

Note that at least in TextEdit, hitting delete after a ligatured fi breaks the ligature and only deletes the i (and you can turn ligatures off from the font panel). If Microsoft didn't understand that this is the only decent behaviour here, they deserve a proper punishment.

Sadly, Project Center does not live up to my expectations. I might have been expecting too much, and I might not have given it enough time yet, but hopefully I can use it for something.

But I do like Entourage's "Preview Pane on Right" in the same way that Office 2003 for Windows currently does it. It seems much more open, and I'm not forced to scroll down a tiny 5 line tall list of all my emails. I see 20 emails on the left side, and see the full page-layout of the email on the right side. I like it a lot.

Mail is actually one of the few programs where I really like its use of a drawer (of course, I have at least 20 folders for my mail, and three different accounts).

I personally love Entourage, I can't live without it. I use it for calendar, address book and email. Office 2004 unfortunately did not update it much, at all, as you have clearly demonstrated.

The spam protection built in is crap, FYI. I like the new look but otherwise I see no reason to upgrade if you only use Entourage (unless, of course, you want to stay up to date on application versions).