Microsoft Office XP Standard Upgrade [Old Version]

In keeping with Microsoft's much-ballyhooed .NET strategy, Office XP introduces several features that utilize the vast infosphere inhabited by the 21st-century desk jockey. Smart tags beckon underneath recognized objects like misspellings or symbols, offering a stock quote here, a synonym there, or "Would anyone care to configure my auto-correction list?" The task pane looks similar to Microsoft Internet Explorer's Explorer Bar, and acts like an open tool chest pulled up alongside each application in the suite, providing readily configured searches for information or multimedia files. Putting up a team Web site that tracks projects and serves as an information hub requires only the use of one of the included templates, ready to be customized and uploaded to the server.

The Send for Review feature further streamlines the collaborative process by allowing the sender to view revisions made by multiple parties within the framework of the original document. Outlook now features a color-coded calendar and easier meeting management, along with instant messaging and variable e-mail account access. All user system errors can be tracked globally, and then network security settings modified remotely while anti-virus and debugging IT resources are diverted accordingly.

After firing up Microsoft Word, typing "Dear Somebody," and hitting the Enter key, we made a startling discovery. Up popped Clippy, Microsoft's publicly pink-slipped office assistant. Clippy might have aptly announced, "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," but instead predictably observed, "It looks like you're writing a letter." Once the groans of disbelief had subsided, we quickly right-clicked and banished Clippy to the silicon ether, presumably forever. --Dominic Johnson

Amazon.com Review
After the most painless installation yet of a Microsoft product, Office XP Standard immediately starts to make a favorable impression. Not only does tighter code mean faster startup and shutdown times for each program, but many smaller tweaks have been introduced to improve functionality across the board.

The focus of this release is on making Office smarter, by providing better collaboration tools for organizations and more customization tools for individual users. The new smart tags are a clever way of automatically matching data in documents to tasks, such as inserting an address when you're writing a letter in Word, or copying and pasting data in Excel. This is extremely welcome, as is the ability to customize AutoCorrect (i.e., choosing which errors you want the program to correct automatically). Also new are task panes, which are essentially a cross between a wizard and the Help system. Using the drop-down menu format, these panes make relevant commands easily available, thus achieving faster results.

In addition to cross-product improvements, each application in the suite has had an overhaul. Outlook has seen many tweaks that improve usability and productivity, notably, AutoCorrect works as you type, and improved ease in setting up mail accounts. Outlook 2002 also includes support for Hotmail, so you can manage this account in the same place as your other e-mail accounts. PowerPoint contains a plethora of enjoyable new effects, including some useful new applications like the organization chart creator. Word and Excel make good use of smart tags and task panes. Some other useful new features include a merge function in Word for incorporating other users' changes, a word count display for those late-night essays, a drop-down menu in Excel with commonly used functions, and an extremely easy-to-use set of diagram creators.

Office XP Standard will improve productivity and results across the entire application suite. The improved functionality, especially with smart tags and task panes, will save users considerable time in creating quality documents. --Colin Neal

Amazon.com Product Description
Microsoft Office XP Standard puts the features you need within easy reach at all times. New context-sensitive smart tags pop up with options you need--right when you need them. No more digging through menus. Tasks that once required multiple steps are just one click away with the new task pane. The new version of Outlook in Office XP Standard condenses all your personal and professional e-mail into one central location, even your Web-based e-mail accounts like Hotmail. With AutoRecover, your work is saved at regular intervals while you work. PowerPoint includes animation effects and custom slide transitions. An editable print preview assures that your printed slides and documents come out right the first time. Office XP Standard also includes Word 2002 and Excel 2002.

MS Office does work. Yes. Sometimes when I used it I would get the blue screen of death, sometimes not. It had its problems but we used it because we had to use it. Because everyone else used it and we had to, too.

StarOffice does the same stuff, handles the same file formats, costs soooo much less money. OpenOffice.org, ditto, and free. The decision isn't really a hard one about whether MS Office is worth buying. You don't need MS Office to make MS Office files (StarOffice opens and creates Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files).

Get StarOffice or OpenOffice.org and keep your money; Microsoft has enough.


Some new things but....   April 5, 2002
 11 out of 12 found this review helpful

Ok first i don't know what some people were talking about ms instant messenger (which has nothin to do with the office suite) but office xp provides some new capablities for the power user. For the occasional user that checks their e-mail with outlook, writes a few word documents and maybe a powerpoint presentation DONOT need this upgrade. The new features are very small and you probably won't even know what they are. Basically all the aplications were left untouched but i have actually noticed a little faster start-up time. It does contain a pretty good document imaging utility to scan text documents and edit them in word and a feature to import and export your office settings which i thin kyou can get as an add-on for office 2000


office xp   April 4, 2002
 6 out of 14 found this review helpful

I have been using this program for a long time and I find nothing wrong with the XP office suite. I have the full version. It's faster than it's previous versions. It loads in half the time that the previous versions do. Those having problems with it let me make a suggestion. Buy a copy of Norton's SystemWorks 2002. It will fix any problems with your computer. The problems some of you are having are probably Windows related (broken shotcuts, invalid links etc.) I love Windows ME and XP Office 2002 - they work great together.

billy


Latest if FATware from Microsoft   February 9, 2002
 13 out of 21 found this review helpful

Do you want to slow yoru systems down?
Do you want more bugs?

I upgraded this because I was looking for a better version of Outlook. I've found the Office 95 or Office 97 suite to be more than adequate for my needs and are the best applications for speed and efficiency. I had to wipe my entire disk to get it working and reinstall my older applications to get it workig reliably again.

The one feature hyped here is the way outlook can download email from WEB based HTML systems. Tht can be done with a free patch available from Microsoft for Outlook 2000...

Microsoft creates software applications that crash your older microsoft applications and encourage you to upgrade. Installing a simple upgrade to Internet Explorer or Instant Messenger will [mess] up a beautifully running machine.

My advice is don't use MS Instant Messenger, because it forces you to upgrade or deal with a reoccuring suggestion to upgrade...The net effect is they never really fix any software package to make it bug free. Each new version introduces new bugs and patches not fully tested, or perhaps deliberately [mess]something else up.

The solution is to use software that has been tested together extensively, like Win95 and Office 95. Win98 and Office 97, etc.

Never upgrade only one component of your OS and Office Applications or you will be sorry.

One final point...


((((B-L-O-A-T-E-D))))   September 12, 2001
 39 out of 45 found this review helpful

I've been using this software for about three months now and have installed it on seven or eight different machines that I maintain, and honestly, the best I can say is that the actual upgrade process is very smooth--this Office suite comes on one CD instead of two, it scans for previous versions, offers full installation options, and explains very clearly what it is doing. When I upgraded to Office 2000, the software took upwards of an hour; with XP, the upgrades took from ten to forty minutes, depending on the speed of the machine I was upgrading to.
You will first notice how nice everything looks and the new "Smart Pane," which is supposed to be a window with what Office thinks you will want to do. The contents of this pane include your most recently used documents and options to create new documents.
The menus look a lot like the DHTML effects common on many web sites--menu options are "highlighted" when you mouse over them. A few other things have changed, but the changes are mostly cosmetic.
The Smart Pane, which is really more of a "pain" than a "pane," is obtrusive to me--I am what is called a "power user," i.e., I use MS Office for about four hours a day, rely on it, and am very familiar with it. When I open an application, I want wide, open space. I often close the Smart Pane without using its features, instead opening documents the way I have for years-either by opening them from the Work menu I added or by clicking to them. This Smart Pane is supposed to close when you open something, but sometimes it doesn't, meaning I have to click to close it.
Worse, the Smart Pane automatically opens when you want to do something it thinks requires many options. For example, if I want to modify a style in Word, the Smart Pane appears and offers me myriad options for editing my styles. This whole process of opening the Smart Pane slows everything down (I'm running a Pentium III 933 mHz with 128 mb RAM and a 7200 rpm ultra ATA hard drive with relatively few applications installed; got to keep it clean!!).
Editing styles provides a good example of how bloated the software is. You may recall from Office 2000 that all the styles were either built in or created by the user. Now, however, XP creates new styles based on what it finds in your document. For example, if you have a italicized one of your Heading 1s, XP will show the regular Heading 1 style and the Heading 1 style with italics. Imagine how many such styles you might have in your document; with these new additions, XP has easily doubled or tripled the number of styles I must wade through to get the one I want.
XP slows down every machine it's loaded on. My oldest machine, a Dell Pentium 75 running Win 98, was still chugging along quite nicely, even with Office 2000 installed. Now, however, after I've installed XP on it, it moves so slowly that it's almost laughable-clicked buttons bubble up comically. The worst part is that the computer is much, much slower, even if I'm not using any of the XP applications. I guess there's too much XP stuff now running in the background.
I have a few gripes with Word, many related to printing problems, but one is particularly laughable, typical of Microsoft. Now, when Word crashes, it politely tells you that it has done so and offers to send a report of the problem to Bill. It swears that it won't send any personal data. The first few times I saw this, I thought, sure, why not, send it, maybe it'll help. Hah! Each time, without fail, my computer froze! So, instead of having just one program crash, I ended up with a frozen machine. Remember, I'm primarily using a new, major name machine with little other software installed. Learned not to do that real quick!
There is one change I do like in Word. Since I do a lot of editing for a living, I find the new style of showing comments much better than the previous method. In Office 2000, comments were shown as "sticky notes" that appeared when you moused over them. Now, however, the comments appear as neat rounded squares in the margin. They look good on the screen and they print out well for others to read.
Another major reason I upgraded was because of a fatal flaw in FrontPage 2000. I have detailed more of this problem in my review of FP2002, but essentially, FP2000 could not publish my web site because it was too large. I was hoping that the bundled FP2002 would have fixed that bug. It did, but it has other compatibility issues that MS hasn't been able to resolve with most web hosts.
My relatively low rating is for the upgrade, not for the overall quality of the product. The product, which crashes at least as frequently as Office 2000, seems to be no more functional than its predecessor, meaning that the upgrade is necessary only for those who want to have the latest thing. The best news is that I've learned how to take advantage of MS's support discussion groups. The answers and workarounds I found in those groups were a thousand times more helpful than MS's pitiful Help or canned tech support messages. Again: Don't pay for support-go to their support groups for help first.
In short, this is something of a "non-upgrade," and will most likely cause more problems than it will fix.