Rating: 
Summary: what it is
Review: Office XP itself was a fine upgrade - endlessly configurable (you don't like the clip? Kill the clip! Hate spell-on-the-fly? Turn it off), well-suited to file- and data-sharing, more stable, quicker internet data connections, still more refinements and improvements (like programmable smart tags) to Excel and Word, a much-improved set of add-ons in Project, Publisher, and Visio. And the upgrade process was easy. If you had trouble you either had some horribly complex project to switch or you waded in without paying attention to instructions. It was a very smooth transition.The Developer version added (still adds, since you can buy it now) added developer editions of SQL Server and Exchange, plus Source Safe, Code Librarian, and various other useful and sometimes well-buried stuff. I'm not sure why Office Developer isn't just folded into a slightly downpriced MSDN Professional, but then Microsoft still hasn't matured on the level of licensing and packaging. The Office suite is, however, a mature product that has been improving enormously since the 2000 release. If only Redmond would lose their fascination with Byzantine licensing and Rubik's Cube bundling (cool! We can sell it this way, and THIS way, and THAT way, and for these people we can probably get them to pay for THIS THAT way ...), people might stop complaining and realize the products are much-improved. 2003 continues the march onward in quality. If you're considering XP Developer, you're likely better off looking at an MSDN package to get the same tools.
Rating: 
Summary: If you can and must upgrade, then purchase this version.
Review: In the interests of full disclosure, my thanks to Microsoft for providing me with a subscription copy of Office XP. I wouldn't own XP if I had to pay for it. The new features in XP, be they useful (like better document recovery), bearable (like the activation procedure), or merely easily disabled (like task panes), simply do not provide a compelling reason for most users to upgrade. This software costs slightly less than my first car did... would that I could spend that kind of money on non-essentials! So who should upgrade? I would say that group consists mostly of large businesses looking to take advantage of XP's new collaboration features and owners of Office 97 Small Business Edition who would like one of the applications not contained in that package. And why this version? Because it contains EVERYTHING, including a very cool mouse, and it's only available for a limited time. In parting, shame on Microsoft for continuing their trend of ridiculously understated and actually steep system requirements. You really do need a new system (P-3/Athlon, 128MB RAM, and a 17" monitor) to get the most from this software - given the wide install base of 64MB Celerons with 15-inch screens, this is a travesty. Linux anyone?
Rating: 
Summary: Real problems with this one..
Review: Installed the upgrade over Office 2000 on a well equipped XP Professional system. Liked it well enough but after an online update, File->Open began taking 20-30 sec per level to navigate to the file. Unfortunately, installing this package seems to put the 'better' file menus in and everything came to a crashing halt. Worse news is that it wouldn't uninstall nor reinstall/fix (something got corrupted). A Msoft A+ beat on it a long time then finally reinstalled XP (unfortunately an all too common occurance, for lots of reasons) and all was well until I installed Office XP again. The problem recurred but this time, a system restore cleaned it up. Still using Office 2000. Now using Office XP as a gold coaster. I've heard of this happening on other systems.. something in the networking maybe.. We're using a Linux server w/Samba drive. Works great with everything else..
Rating: 
Summary: Office
Review: Well, actually I like Excel and hate Word. The other programs included I have little or no use for.
I use Excel all the time for engineering calculations, including writing VBA macros to automate things that I can't do easily in the cells. It's very useful, like having a calculator that remembers everything you've done, writes it down, but allows you to change inputs and recalculate everything automatically. Unfortunately, there is a bug in the help files, so I can't get Visual Basic help anymore. The IT guys at work fixed the regular help but never could get the macro help to work again. Very annoying.
Word is terrible compared to WordPerfect. What I used to be able to do with a couple of keystrokes, now takes minutes of navigation thru menus and dialog boxes. Outline formatting, numbered lists, etc. are especially frustrating in Word because nothing is obvious. You shouldn't have to get a college degree in word processing in order to learn to write a specification and get the formatting correct. One annoyance is that paragraph formatting is hidden in a selectable little space at the end of the paragraph, so if you try to delete the last few words by hitting shift-end and delete, you will delete numbering, formatting, etc. of that paragraph. Also, the thesaurus that came with WordPerfect was much better.
In general, Microsoft Office tries to be everything for every possible user, automates many tasks to do things that it thinks I want to do even though I don't, and makes it hard to figure out how to undo them.
I am using WordPerfect wherever possible and trying StarOffice.
Rating:
Summary: Thank goodness I get a university discount
Review: When I saw the cost of this, my jaw dropped. I didn't think it would cost so much for Word, PowerPoint, FrontPage and Excel. I went to the university bookstore at my school to see if I could get any kind of discount on it. Thank goodness Indiana University has a contract with Microsoft! About the program now that I've complained about the cost enough... WORD
This is the program I use the most because for being a word processing program, it is very versatile. I can write term papers and what not with it, but I can also credit news letters complete with graphics. I have also used it to create invoices with neat graphics. FRONTPAGE
I know HTML (one of the languages webpage makers write webpages in), so I pretty much only use this program when I'm trying out something new, like frams. I have also used it to figure out HTML codes for colors, frames, and tables. I had a college instructor who used it to do her entire webpage and it looked pretty good. EXCEL
I used Excel to keep track of the money I was spending on gas for 6 months, how many miles I was traveling, where I was traveling, and the cost of gas. I know it sounds like of nerdy, but it really helped me save some money on gas, knowing exactly where to stop when I was on a trip. I also has how many miles I was putting on my car in that 6 months (10,000+ miles), which explained the wear and tear. POWERPOINT
I am just beginning to learn this. I didn't realize what a valuable program PowerPoint was until people in some of my college classes gave presentations with it. Man, my poster board presentation was nothing compared to theirs. It is actually a pretty easy program to learn, but the 'little extras' like the animation and extra graphics can take a bit of time. OUTLOOK
I use this program to check my school e-mail because I have AOL at home. I like not having to go to the university's website, navigating my way to the mail page, signing it, and going through at least one more link, just to get to my e-mail. This program goes straight to my mailbox with no links, no navigating. ACCESS
When I tried to use access to create a database of my CDs, I had a lot of problems. It is probably the only program in this software suite that I think is a total waste of disc space. I have had to use it before, but for me, I can just use Excel to make lists, it is much easier to use. I am really glad that I have Microsoft Office. It has made school a lot easier. I can e-mail documents to my school account, download them, and know they will work with the school software. That saves me from having to reformat the assignment whenever I want to work on it at school.
Rating:
Summary: Trust me It's great!! - Andre Da Costa
Review: I recently went to a friends house and found out they had XP running on their machines and wasn't I amazed. The application that startled me the most was PowerPoint it is just fantastic with the new animations, this will make any audience say "WOW". The applications are also great with a much improved user interface, other improved applications are Publisher which is also my favourite application next to PPT. The other apps. such as Access and FrontPage hasn't changed a lot but they do look great with minor user interface improvements. With the look and feel of this version of Office you would surely even wan't to upgrade from 2000, thing for me is I don't have anymore money I already spent it buying Office 2000. But for those of 95,97 and even 98 it's worth the upgrade. My friends machine run's Win2k so he's O.K. I heard that it won't run on Win95, but that shouldn't be a problem just buy the upgrade for Win98 [it's cheap] and your done. Other nice features are Smart Tags, Task Panes they help a lot especially when it comes to doing school work. The only time I'm going to upgrade is in 2002 when WinXP arrives. Other products you should also try is MS Portfolio 2002 with hundreds of templates. One missing app. I miss so dearly is PhotoDraw, it was discontinued [shame on you Microsoft].
Rating:
Summary: Only if you are new to MS Office!
Review: Microsoft Office XP Standard offers four essential tools that allows the user to create professional looking documents, resumes, letters etc. It also has powerful tools for mail merge, document recovery ( so if a blue screen attack happens it will recover your document). It also has a speech recoginition technology, which you have to train before you can actually start telling it what to do. Microsoft Excel, is a very essential program that makes adding up and analyzing numbers very easy, you are able to create chart's with your numbers for formal presentation. Microsoft Excel has become like a industry standard spreadsheet program so that at least should make you think about buying this suite. It also contains features for publishing your data on the web. Microsoft Outlook is a great e-mail program or PIM that has everything in one place, you are able to have multiple accounts without having to sign in multiple times separately into different e-mail services, Outlooks scheduling features are truly amazing when it comes to organizing your life. Microsoft PowerPoint is a great program for creating presentations, with its fantastic effects, PowerPoint 2002, especially is worth the buy, you will have a lot of fun with this product alone! Over all the new features in Office XP it self will make it a great buy for first time users, things such as task pane which allows users to work more faster. It would have been nice to add Microsoft Access, which is a great database program but, you have to look to the Professional edition of Office XP for that program. If the price of the program scares you and you don't have the money and only want essential tools look to Microsoft Works Suite 2002, a great set of integrated tools, which offers the complete version of Microsoft Word and a spreadsheet, database etc at a [lowe] price, ... check out the review!
Rating:
Summary: Real problems with this one..
Review: Installed the upgrade over Office 2000 on a well equipped XP Professional system. Liked it well enough but after an online update, File->Open began taking 20-30 sec per level to navigate to the file. Unfortunately, installing this package seems to put the 'better' file menus in and everything came to a crashing halt. Worse news is that it wouldn't uninstall nor reinstall/fix (something got corrupted). A Msoft A+ beat on it a long time then finally reinstalled XP (unfortunately an all too common occurance, for lots of reasons) and all was well until I installed Office XP again. The problem recurred but this time, a system restore cleaned it up. Still using Office 2000. Now using Office XP as a gold coaster. I've heard of this happening on other systems.. something in the networking maybe.. We're using a Linux server w/Samba drive. Works great with everything else..
Rating:
Summary: If you want to write...
Review: Microsoft Word on XP is the industry standard and next to Quark Express one of the most important tools of the trade. Nothing comes close to Microsoft Word. MSWORD is as important as the invention of the pen and most importantly is compatible with nearly everything. Open up any written document. Save to any written document type. The import feature is almost flawless.
Rating:
Summary: Dont' do it!
Review: This is an extremely disappointing product. When I bought a new computer with Windows XP loaded, I was forced to upgrade my previous version of Office to restore all of the functionality. They have added so many 'features' that many things that used to be simple are nearly impossible. It is also extremely intrusive (guessing what you're trying to do), often wrong, and very hard to dissuade. Something as simple as a numbered list with sub-bullets in Word is an exercise in frustration. Creating web pages with Word that used to take me 15 minutes or so are now multi-hour curse-a-thons. Unless your hand is forced, you'll be much happier with the earlier versions of MS Office.
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