Computer help forum: Replacement For Office 2007 Needed

I think Outlook or Office in general has my computer jacked up. I need to get it off my PC ASAP, but now that I have Thunderbird installed, I cannot figure out how to get my emails, contacts, and calendar out of Outlook. When I try the Import feature in Thunderbird and choose to import (doesn't matter if I choose mail, contacts, or calendar) from Outlook, Thunderbird freezes up and will not respond. Any idea why this is happening. My firewall and anti-virus is Windows Internet Security.

Also, can the iPhone/iTunes sync with Thunderbird? Ijust want to be able to get the stuff I enter into my iPhone in the way of contact info to upload to Thunderbird when I plug my phone into iTunes.

If the usual google on moving such to other email systems fail, I need more detail about what you tried.
Bob

Bob,

Okay, this is going to be long-winded, but I'll try to explain things as they have happened. Bear with me because I am not well adept in computers when it comes to diagnosing and fixing problems.

I have had the custom-built PC I own for almost two years. The OS is Win 7. The version of iTunes I am running is 10.6 (up to date). I am also running (or was until last night) Office '07. Up until I activated my iCloud account, everything seemed to be hunky-dory. Last Thursday night I attempted an iTunes/iPhone 4 sync by USB. If you are familiar w/iTunes, you know the sync first backs up and then goes through several sync steps. When my sync got to "Syncing Contacts," the sync appeard to get stuck, but not frozen. There were no program not responding errors. Maybe had I let it run its course things would have been fine, but in the past a sync would cycle in a few minutes or less. This was taking several hours. So, I ejected the iPhone and tried it again unchecking Sync Contacts under the Info tab in iTunes. I did this thinking "the contacts are already on the phone and in Outlook, so I'm only compromising any new contact infor being uploaded to Outlook." Bad idea. The sync worked quickly, got new music on the phone, etc., but the contacts were gone from the phone and Outlook. So I turned on the Sync Contacts in iCloud on the phone and the contacts downloaded to the phone, but in Outlook, instead of them being in the regular Contacts folder, they were in the iCloud contacts folder. This is not what I want. I want those contacts in a version for Outlook (and the phone for that matter) that will not dissapear from Outlook and the phone if I turn off iCloud, and it appears that is the way things are now since I activated my cloud account.

What I desire is to have an email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Live Mail) that will allow me to sync my phone with iTunes and any new contact info I have added to my phone contacts (usually how I add new contacts) or the client contacts will transfer. It appears the only client for Windows iTunes will allow this to happen with is Outlook, which I had.

Yesterday, I called a local PC repair shop and expected to explain my problem, get a "yes" or "no" on whether or not they could help, and then bring it in for repair (for lack of a better term). The person told me that he believed the problem to lie with Outlook and that there is a "glitch" if you will with Office/Outlook that when multiple programs (in my case iTunes/iCloud/Outlook) start competing with eachother in a sync, Outlook starts "punching holes in the files that contain contacts and calendars." I figured, "Hey, sounds good to me. i'll get OL07 off my machine and I'll be good again." I knew that in doing this I would still need to find a replacement. I did also ask myself the question, "If OL is the problem, why did the syncs work fine until the time when iCloud account activation entered the scene?" Then last night I was looking at an Apple article on how to set up iCloud with a PC. It said that in order to access email, contacts, and calendars, OL07 or OL10 is required.

So now I am where I am, think of trying to reinstall OL07 (w/o the rest of Office and just installing Openoffice or Libreoffice) or getting Office 2010.

Any ideas?

And here's my short version.

Sync is perilous as the settings are up to the user. Some users do not want to dive into a dozen menus on all devices to set SYNC PREFERENCES.

For example, we have to choose between device overwrites PC, device adds to PC app data or the other way around.

This is why some folk think this area is busted. That is, unless you write apps, your everyday user would think this is broken. Why? Because it doesn't do what they want in stock form.

We also have BIG MISSES or features that don't always work such as contact groups. It's a mess today.

Back to your issues. The first thing to do is to assure that anything you do, does not lose your data. I read your posts and see that you have not backed it up since I read ...

"I want those contacts in a version for Outlook (and the phone for that matter) that will not dissapear from Outlook and the phone if I turn off iCloud, and it appears that is the way things are now since I activated my cloud account."

There it is, you need to look at backup and restore procedures for Outlook contacts. It's a mess in my opinion because after all these years, MSFT never put a backup and restore into this app. I can explain why and it's not what most know about so here goes. Outlook is a sales vehicle to sell more Exchange Servers.

Hope you caught on with that last sentence. Outlook is stripped of some features if you don't have Exchange Server.
Bob

ITUNES SYNC CONTACTS WITH THUNDERBIRD

The first hit was https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1640265?start=0&tstart=0 and told a way. But it's from 2008 and probably a lot is changed by now.

If no good answer comes here, try our http://forums.cnet.com/mac-forums/iphones-and-ipods-forum/

Kees