| Office 2007 Trial Makes Sense |
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| Saturday, 02 December 2006 | |
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As expected, the previous offer for Microsoft Office Professional went exceedingly fast. While we don’t have product to give away, we can tell you how to get the fully functional 60 day trial versions for Microsoft Office 2007. The office suite has gone through significant design changes so you may want to try before buying.
I’m a big believer in fully functioning trials. These days, who has time to buy software that doesn't suit their needs? The return process can be costly in terms of time and sometimes money if a restocking fee is charged. In the case of Microsoft Office 2007, I think it makes sense for consumers to test the product before purchasing for three reasons: 1. The software is expensive even though you save money by buying the suite instead of the individual applications.
Before Downloading the Office Trial SoftwareWhile downloading the software limits the audience to people with high-speed internet connections, there are a few other requirements. Some of these may be show stoppers based on your PC or physical location. In that case, I would wait to purchase the trial CDs or DVD.
You do need to answer a questionnaire, but the length and questions were acceptable to me. Part of this process will enroll you for some trial series emails, but you can opt out. If you installed the beta version of Microsoft Office Suite 2007, you should remove it first. You can use the trial with previous version of Microsoft Office. The exception being your PC can’t have two versions of Microsoft Outlook. Determining Which Microsoft Office Suite to DownloadPerhaps, the most challenging task is figuring which version to download. In the early years, the decision was easy based on fewer versions. Now, there are many choices. The table below shows four versions I think will appeal to readers, but there are more options if you’re an enterprise users. 
I know the above chart maybe overwhelming, but if you look at the chart, a couple of patterns emerge:
Once you make a product selection, you’ll see a page with your Microsoft Office Product Key and download buttons. Although the key is emailed, my notification was stopped by my spam filter. It’s probably best to print this page. Depending on which version you select, you may see multiple download buttons. I chose Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and noticed two buttons. Using DSL, the total download time was 45 minutes for the two files. Each download file was roughly 400 MB. Installing Microsoft OfficeThe installation process went smoothly on our test notebook which has only 256 MB. Since I had an existing version of Microsoft Outlook, the installation process needed to remove it. You can’t have multiple instances on Microsoft Outlook on a machine. That limitation makes sense to me especially if you have a POP email account rather than IMAP and also because of the way Outlook stores data. I opted to change the default setting so all previous versions were removed. I did this primarily for space considerations after verifying that I had the install CD and product key from Microsoft Office 2003. The other reason I removed the previous version was because I wanted to force myself to use the program. If I left the previous version intact, I might be inclined to revert and not learn the new features. I didn’t totally burn my bridges as my main PC still has Office 2003. My suggestion is if you’re thinking of purchasing for the first time or upgrading, take advantage of the trail. Other than the 45 minute download time, there is little risk in trying the software. You don’t even have to drive to a mall. Sixty days is a generous time period which should give most users a good idea of the program. If you like, there are options to convert the program. Referenced Resources Microsoft Trial Download Site: http://www.trymicrosoftoffice.com/
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| Last Updated ( Friday, 15 June 2007 ) |
