Here Comes Official Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

On Monday, Nov 17th, Microsoft released its public beta test for their next Office suites, Microsoft Office 2010. The public beta, which is Beta 2 actually internally, will be first made available to MSDN/TechNet subscribers, and then to the wide public through the newly designed Office beta website.

16 products in exe extensions, available in both x86 and x64 type, had been rolled out this morning, an amazing step for Microsoft.

This time, Microsoft had provided beta MAK, MultipleActivation Key, to facilitate the implementation of the new volume license scheme for Office beginning 2010, which first appeared on Windows Vista three years ago.

[Nov 17th: Sorry guys for accidentally erasing the comments. Hope this could amend.]

Also available from Microsoft are specific retail license keys for various components for Office, like Visio Premium 2010 Beta.

Apparently Microsoft had put much thought and expectation in the next generation of the set of business standard tools, appearance got great revamp, program footprint got large reduction, and even the suite package got big changes.

To this date, it’s still unclear how many SKUs will be made available for final Office 2010, but for some types, we now have better knowledge.

Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus will include 9 components:

Briefing about WZT leak

WZT, the very famous and accurate and respected Russian source for Microsoft products, had leaked Microsoft Office 2010 Beta 2 about a month ago, version 14.0.4514.1004, displayed as 14.0.4514.1007 in Office about.

WZT assured people this version will be the final Beta 2, aka the public Beta, for Microsoft Office 2010. However, some people had been doubting this. And with today’s rolling out of the official Beta, we now know the final version tag carried with it is 14.0.4536.1000, seemingly much larger than WZT’s.

Well, let’s take a easy route to find some interesting things undercover. I’d downloaded and had been using the WZT leaked Office 2010 Beta 2. A simple comparison can solve the problem.

Anyone familiar with Microsoft’s products knows they had a habit that for any new software build, they’ll patch the time stamp into setup.exe through digital signature, which is nearly impossible to fake, for…record, maybe. We’d only need to compare these two setup.exe to determine whether there is any update or not.

Setup.exe out of WZT’s 2010 Beta 2

 

Setup.exe from the official public Beta, extracted from the single exe package.

Both are exactly the same.

As a habit, for any internal test build to be shifted to the official Beta, or Release Candidate, Microsoft will pick the build for widened test to save itself from any potential public image trouble. If the build couldn’t pass the public release standard, they will fix whatever needed to bring on a new build, as in the making of Windows 7 Release Candidate; if the build passed the standard, a simple naming and packaging will seal the distribution source, as in making this Office 2010 Beta.

So if you had enjoyed the WZT leak of Office 2010 Beta 2, continue it, because it’s no different than today’s public Beta.

The only thing differed is the license required for activation. WZT’s leak is a retail image of Office 2010 Beta, and the image released today on MSDN/TechNet is one volume license kind.

When Office 2010 Beta is generally available to the public customers, expected tomorrow or at least within this week, retail images will be available for download at Microsoft’s official Office Beta website, coupled with certain unified, or unique product keys maybe.

Tiny Review

Having tried Office Beta 2 for about a month now, I had truly fallen in love with the new suite, fast, efficient, elegant, and light, plus good looking as its precedent, Office 2007.

The basic components all get great revamps, and the common functions are heavily enhanced. The newly redesigned Ribbon UI had be themed on every component, and following function shortcuts truly improves the efficiency.

The most impressive improvement in the suite for me is PowerPoint 2010. It’s super fast compared against its 2007 counterpart, and there are now handful new transitions and animations added to the already varied collections. Some very cool transitions truly blew my mind.

Every single transition here, including those been here since PowerPoint 95, is having a revamp, making this PowerPoint harboring the best transitions in the industry. I’d say it’s movie standard.

And one other big improvement is the ability to convert PowerPoint slides into videos, ranging from lower quality for playback at handsets to high definition 720P on big screen.

This is the best! For years, presenters had been asking for support of native convert, and many companies are providing various solutions for this converting tasks, but none could achieve a great output quality. Either the picture got dimmed or the good transitions chopped and disturbed.

Now all these headaches are ended with the coming of PowerPoint 2010, which incorporates the native support for video converting. After many trials, I can assure you the output is simply PERFECT! Just like playing the slides.

I am not good at describing good features in apps, and I believe the best features of software are better to taste on your own.

So here I am, overwhelmingly recommending everyone to try the new Office. You will not be disappointed.

Office will definitely continue its undefeated champion profile for the next coming years.

Good job, Microsoft! Thank you!