Authors Note: I decided because of length to split this review into two parts; one covering the software package overall, and one detailing my trials and tribulations (there were many) with the beast. So I give you Part 1, Part 2 will follow in short order.

Let me start this review by declaring that I like Microsoft® (MS) Office 2000, perhaps more than any other Microsoft Office release thus far. It may have taken longer to install then previous releases, but the overall package was easy to use, tightly integrated, and worked well with other programs. And while I despise Microsoft Service Packs and periodic update packages—because they seem to cause more problems then they resolve—I dutifully apply them because of security concerns, and in the case of MS Office 2000, seemed to suffer none-the-less for ware.

So why, you may ask, did I switch to Office XP Professional, a.k.a. Office 2002? One reason: broader support for email packages including HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Internet Message Transfer Protocol (IMAP). I have recently started using Microsofts’ Hotmail for various important correspondences. Hotmail however does not support POP3, so I could not download my mail from my account into Outlook 2000; I had to use a separate email package in the guise of Outlook Express instead. I also had to use Outlook Express for newsgroups. And since I am anal and like to store all of my email and newsgroups in one place, Outlook 2002s’ support for new mail packages and newsgroups was a must have for me.

Office XP, in that time honored Microsoft tradition, has been released in several different versions which I have detailed below, each with its own escalating price point and hardware resource concerns. At the time of this writing however, I could not find a price point for Office XP Professional Special Edition. Although the software package is listed on Microsofts’ Office XP website, I could not find a retail version for purchase, but I listed it here, because it is a listed version.

Office XP Professional Special Edition contains:
• Microsoft Word version 2002
• Microsoft Excel version 2002
• Microsoft Outlook® version 2002
• Microsoft PowerPoint® version 2002
• Microsoft Access version 2002
• Microsoft FrontPage® version 2002
• SharePoint™ Team Services from Microsoft
• Microsoft Publisher version 2002
• Microsoft IntelliMouse® Explorer

Office XP Professional (Cost $579.00 full version, $329.00 upgrade):

• Microsoft Word 2002
• Microsoft Excel 2002
• Microsoft Outlook 2002
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
• Microsoft Access 2002

Office XP Standard or Standard for Students and Teachers (Cost $479.00 full version, $239.00 upgrade):
• Microsoft Word 2002
• Microsoft Excel 2002
• Microsoft Outlook 2002
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2002

Office XP Developer (Cost $799.00 full version, $529.00 upgrade):
• Microsoft Word 2002
• Microsoft Excel 2002
• Microsoft Outlook 2002
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
• Microsoft Access 2002
• Microsoft FrontPage 2002
• SharePoint Team Services from Microsoft
• Developer Tools
• Documentation

Installation and Use:

Before I installed Office XP I paid a visit to Microsofts’ Office XP web site and did a little research; I wanted to know just how much of a hardware resource hit I was going to take in installing this beast. This is what I found out:

RAM requirements for all Office XP suites:

• Windows 98, or Windows 98 Second Edition:
24 MB of RAM plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each Office program (such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, or PowerPoint) running simultaneously.

• Windows Me, or Microsoft Windows NT®
32 MB of RAM plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each Office application running simultaneously.

• Windows 2000 Professional
64 MB of RAM plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each Office application running simultaneously.

•Windows XP Professional, or Windows XP Home Edition
128 MB of RAM plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each Office application running simultaneously.

Hard disk space requirements Office XP suites (your mileage will vary of course depending on configuration; custom installation choices may require more or less hard drive space):

•Office XP Standard
210 MB of available hard disk space.

•Office XP Professional and Professional Special Edition
245 MB of available hard disk space.

Since I already had MS Office Professional installed I did an update as opposed to a fresh install, which consumed 60MB of hard drive space and completed in a record five minutes! If I had chosen to do a fresh installation, I could have let Office XP chose the components to install, or like Office 2000, I could have picked from a vast array of packages, tools and accessories.

First Impressions:

Once the computer rebooted I started Outlook 2002 and setup my hotmail inbox which to my surprise was easy enough to accomplish. While I love the idea of having access to my Hotmail Inbox I don’t like the fact that I cannot move it into my personal folders where my regular Outlook Inbox resides. I have noticed that Outlook is slower to respond to mouse clicks then older versions and this is an annoyance. The other applications in the suite do not suffer the same malady, at least from what I have observed.

I like the new Multiuse Pane in Word, and I especially like the Clipboard Pane. I do a lot of cutting and pasting between documents, within documents and across applications. Under Office 2000, the clipboard floated on the desktop by default and it got to be a pain when switching between applications; e.g. switching between Word and Outlook, because it would pop up in the middle of the screen. And I hated the fact that what I copied to the clipboard was not readily seen; I had the right click on it to see the contents.

With the new clipboard pane however, I can anchor it to the right side of the screen, type a document and have minute access to the contents because two lines of abbreviated text is displayed along with an icon denoting the program is was copied from. Now that’s cool! And the Pane is displayed across applications; i.e. Access, FrontPage, Excel and PowerPoint.

{Continued on Part two}


Recommended: Yes