Mini Review of Microsoft Office 2010

Yesterday, after the publication of the news about official RTM of Microsoft Office 2010, certain website, famous for its accurate Microsoft insider info, had rolled out torrent files for the Microsoft Office 2010, claimed to be the original Microsoft RTM images.

Well, although still planning to wait for Office 2010 through Microsoft’s official distribution channels, it’ll be good to grab this image to have a closer look at what’s goin’ on, considering the infamous habit of scarce public builds for Office development.

The one I downloaded is the universal compatible 32-bit edition.

WZT, the ultimate website leaking numerous insider news from Microsoft, sealed that RTM build of Microsoft Office 2010 is 14.0.4763.1000, although some components carry their own build number.

The installation is quite simple, which we had seen working well in Beta 2.

As announced with the public Beta, Microsoft had simplified the versions of Office. No more Ultimate or Enterprise SKUs. For 2010, the hierarchy tops at Professional Plus, and straight to the end are, Professional, Standard,  Home and Business, Home and Student.

Office 2010 Professional Plus and Office 2010 Standard will only be available to enterprises through volume licensing.

There exists one special version named Office 2010 Professional Academic Version, tailored for academic audience with considerable price cut.

It is expected when released through official Microsoft channels, the 32-bit and 64-bit Office 2010 would be combined as one image for all, same as retail images, planned by Microsoft for the purpose of simple out-of-box experience.

The required installation time is lessen significantly since the public Beta.

Since this is a leak of volume edition, no license key will be asked for during the installation as it’s embedded the KMS client key within the source for integrated activation schemes within enterprise environment. Retail version will ask for license keys before any installation continues.

I haven’t deployed any KMS server for test, so I opted to use MAK license key for activation. To make that happen, you’ll need to launch an application, and find the Change Product Key link.

If the computer is connected to the Internet, Office 2010 will automatically try to activate your copy against Microsoft servers.

Every application in Office 2010 runs so smooth and fast that the only one I can manage to take a picture at is the SharePoint Workspace, paced down by its checking for Internet configuration.

I didn’t go through each app to check for what the exact improvements and revamps are. The most obvious difference I’d noticed is the launch speed is even faster than the already really fast Beta, which is great!

Here are all the snaps of the build numbers for all applications in Office 2010 Professional Plus.

I’ve been using Office 2010 Beta for months, and I’m truly very impressed with the whole smooth experience. I can even use it on my five years old Dell Inspiron laptop with no obvious speed drop.

Opting for the overall light color theme, which carries obvious Web 2.0 characteristics, may not be an all approved move, but after using it for this long, I think we can become accustomed to it.

Microsoft Office 2010 will undoubtedly become a great product boosting efficiency alongside improving user experience, just like Windows 7.

Microsoft clearly had learned from their past faults in Vista-era, and applied the outcome to all the components within the 7-era.

Now with Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2010, Visual Studio 2010, and the coming SQL 2010, the whole new Microsoft platform is finalized, and the promise of this platform will be truly unlimited, impacting every one of us around the world.