I recently purchased a UMPC as a replacement for my PDA. One of my major uses for the PDA was reading books. I was looking forward to the new version of Microsoft Reader that was promised for February. When can we expect to see this or is it available already and I missed it? Thanks.

I loaded the Origami Experieince and enjoy it. I haven't gotten everything set up yet but I hope to use that as an interface most of the time.

Until MS reader is avalible, you might want to try out adobe digital editions, it is completely flash based (thus very responsive and quick), and it takes advantage of the wide screen aspect ratio in full screen mode.

//F2theD

I too am waiting for this.  When MS Reader was first introduced, I spent a lot of time converting technical documentation and scholastic reading lists for my son to LIT format, because it was clean and viewable on both desktop and our handheld devices.  I'd like to more reliably be able to also view them on our UMPC devices, but alas, February has come and gone and I've yet to see MSReader for the UMPC...

yeah, I asked mr. ross a couple days ago during one of his "brief" drive by's of the forum, haven't heard back since then (i think they are scaaaaarrrrrrrreeeeddd of us...).

would be nice to see the version specially fitted for UMPC, but if you haven't tried it yet, they do have a Tablet version for PC's with XP Tablet PC Edition at http://www.microsoft.com/reader/downloads/default.asp.

Might work and provide all the tablet features... if not there is always the standard desktop/laptop version.

when did they release Vista & Origami Experience, and turned over the Origami Project & v2 to the new project team? seems like it has been about a month now...

Sorry about the slight delay - looks like I missed your original post.

We haven't forgotten about the Microsoft Reader for UMPC. The Reader team is working on getting this out the door, so never fear, it is on the way. I don't have anything more concrete for you than that right now, but it's coming...

Ross

woaaaa! thanks for getting back so soon, was beginning to wonder about the new project team.

don't mean to be so sarcastic in some of my posts but there are a lot of issues out there so we all hope your team has an ear on the forum.  Vista drivers, express Vista upgrades, & MS Reader for UMPC come to mind as the major ones.

it would be nice if Microsoft provided people a common place where solutions are organized, combined, and refined so they can move on and start enjoying their UMPC's, especially with the new features of Vista and the Origami Experience.

I am currently using MS reader for tablet-pc and it is not really the best interface for  UMPC's I think we would all like to See a New reader when you people at Microsoft getready to release a New version please let us all know in the forum.

on a side note the handwriting recognition isn't to badon tablet 2005.

Great news!  I just received the Q1P with Vista factory installed, and guess what, the new MS reader for UMPC's is installed on the computer.  It's also on the restore disk.  I checked, and it's not available for download yet. 

Nice!

 Any chance you would be willing to upload that and some of the official apps & drivers from that CD for the rest of us while we patiently await their 'official' releases?

 If so, please let me know and I'll send you some info on where you could upload to.

 If not, no problem. We'll just remain jealous!!!

Good news either way!!!

 Jay

Any help is welcome!

Shame there isnt a place on OP for downloads of things like this and other beta stuff.

Have you checked out the Origami Experience Pack from the Q1P running Vista that Ctitanic & psybertech72  have uploaded in the Q1 Vista Driver post. If you download this and unrar it inside is Readerv26OEMsetupUSA.exe

I installed this on my Q1 Celeron running XP and it is an UMPC optimised reader, don't know if it will work on other devices. But its worth a try.

I subscribe to digitally downloadable magazines from Zinio. Their reader works brilliantly with my Q1P and its a nice way of browsing magazines. Touch the screen to zoom in out and use arrow keypad on the left to scroll / page flip. At $12 for 12 numbers of e.g. a photography magazine you really cant beat this. In Norway if I bought this magazine in the stand it would cost $12 each!!!

I love this digital "revolution" and wouldnt hesitate using my Q1P for reading books as well if they just didnt mess it up with DRM and require all kinds of readers to read different types of books. I wish media sellers would stop their piracy campaign and start thinking more about their lawful users and stop making it so darn hard to consume the digital media you just bought. Some day they will have to wake up from this crusade before people just stop buying stuff and try to get hacked stuff so you at least can watch/listen/read on whatever device you have. If they would only see this...

Thanks to yorkman for the information and  Ctitanic & psybertech72 for uploading and hosting the Origami Experience Pack from the Q1P. I was able to load the Microsoft Reader from that and it works perfectly on my Sony. It's a very comfortable way to read a book in bed. Much better than any of the PDA's I've used. The font is crisp and it requires a very gentle touch to turn pages. Microsoft put out a good product.

This might be slightly off topic but I find the Haali ebook reader to be excellent. It's free and hopefully works with Vista. I use it with text files and love it as you can change fonts, backgrounds, etc....

Here is the Windows version of it: http://haali.cs.msu.ru/pocketpc/files/Haali%20Reader%20v2.0%20Setup.exe

Jerry.