Product Description

Microsoft Office Std 2003 Version Upgrade

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4258 in Software
• Brand: Microsoft
• Model: 021-06153
• Released on: 2003-10-21
• Platform: Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 2.50" h x 9.75" w x 11.50" l, .95 pounds

Features

• Junk e-mail filtering and blocking of unsafe attachments
• Backward compatibility with older versions of Office programs
• Automatic backup and recovery of documents
• Create professional and effective documents using Word
• Access, analyze, and display data with Excel spreadsheets

From the Manufacturer
Solve the challenges you and your business face with Microsoft Office 2003. Microsoft Office 2003 is designed to help you improve your productivity and achieve better results. Powerful new functionality behind familiar and easy-to-use applications will let you take on today's demanding business challenges. The new Microsoft Office provides the building blocks for you to create solutions that will help your organization take more effective action. Discover new ways to communicate with others, create and share documents, and utilize information.

Key Features:

• junk e-mail filtering and blocking of unsafe attachments
• backward compatibility with older versions of Office programs
• automatic backup and recovery of documents

Why pick Standard?

More Secure, Manageable E-mail: Get better management of your e-mails with junk e-mail filters for enhanced protection.

Complete Compatibility: Create documents with Microsoft Office Word 2003, Excel 2003, and PowerPoint 2003, which can be read and edited by users of Microsoft Office 97, 2000, or XP. PowerPoint Presentations on Any PC: Burn multimedia PowerPoint presentations—including a free PowerPoint viewer—directly to CD, then show the presentations on any PC, even one without Office.

Upgrade Eligibility

Determine whether your current version of Microsoft Office qualifies you for the upgrade price. The following products qualify:

• Microsoft Office XP: Office XP Developer, Office XP Professional with FrontPage., Office XP Professional Special Edition, Office XP Professional with Publisher, Office XP Professional, Office XP Small Business Edition, Office XP Standard
• Microsoft Office 2000: Office 2000 Developer, Office 2000 Premium, Office 2000 Professional, Office 2000 Small Business Edition, Office 2000 Standard
• Microsoft Office 97: Office 97 Professional, Office 97 Small Business Edition (version 2), Office 97 Small Business Edition (version 1), Office 97 Standard
• Microsoft Works: Works Suite 20061, Works Suite 2004, Works Suite 2003, Works Suite 2002, Works Suite 2001, Works 2000, Works 8.0, Works 7.0, Works 6.0

Microsoft Office 2003 Standard Edition includes:

• Microsoft Word 2003
• Microsoft Outlook 2003
• Microsoft Excel 2003
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2003

Customer Reviews

Essential tools with powerful enhancements!
Word 2003 includes development tools that add dynamic features to documents making them powerful than ever. The power beneath all this is XML, allowing the user to embed components for updating data in documents such as stock quotes. Word 2003 offers simple, familiar yet improved features regular users are accustomed to. Majority of the features in Word 2003 are aimed primarily toward businesses and the Enterprise. But are still necessary for the average user because of the control over information across all the Office applications. Tools such as Information Rights Management (IRM), (this controls the flow of information to specific users), persons can be restricted on how they use your Office files; whether it's printing or sharing, very powerful! Reading view is an enhanced mode of print preview; documents are laid out in virtual pages reducing the need to print. The Task Pane is also improved by offering resources to look up information on a particular topic being typed; this is a feature across the core Office applications. Lots of other great features make Word 2003 a worthy upgrade.

Excel is a XML mammoth because of the integration with the language. The ability to migrate data between different storage sources and extraction of information to make it flexible in different scenarios. Tables can be transferred back and forth between applications such Word with ease. Excel can continually use the tables from documents as a data source for further expandability. It's the flexibility for data exchange that makes Excel 2003 very powerful.

Outlook, is so revamped, this alone is a worthy upgrade. Three panes in Outlook 2003 make e-mail an enjoyable experience. The Mail Pane holds all of the necessary tools found in prior versions of Outlook such as the Outlook Bar, and the different folders such as inbox, calendar, etc. The second pane gives an expanded view of the different items listed in the Mail Pane, like your incoming mail, contacts and calendar, which makes reading these information resources easier on the eye and productive by providing a better view. Reading your e-mail in the third pane (Preview Pane), the user views the message in portrait layout, more content is seen compared to prior versions. Its even better to view e-mails with "Clear Type" turned on for Windows XP users. Other features such as improved Virus and Spam protection makes Outlook 2003 a great upgrade. Outlook is not placed on the desktop by default, it can also be minimized to the system tray in Windows, for users connected to an Exchange Server, this displays all the network settings available.

PowerPoint 2003 offers the same features of version 2002, but what makes it an enticing upgrade is the package to CD feature that allows users to save presentations onto CD-ROMS. The PowerPoint Viewer included with each Package to CD allows it to be played on other computer systems even if PowerPoint is not installed. Windows media integration is also in PowerPoint 2003, which makes watching presentations more fun and exciting. The effects are fantastic when combined with these elements. The ability to integrate videos into Presentations to create home movies has long been a request of users, even if they have a DVD burner. For the PowerPoint 2000 user this is a worthy upgrade that provides simple yet Powerful tools to take presentation graphics to a new level.

Worthwhile purchase
I needed upgrades for my Microsoft Office and this really did the trick. I enjoy using Outlook 2003 much more than the older version I had for several years. Most of the other parts of the package are fairly similar, although there are several features of Word that are a bit annoying to me. Otherwise I would give it an excellent rating.

Like Bugs? If Yes, Then Buy This!
I am writing with reference to Office 2003 Standard in both Upgrade and Full (non upgrade) versions.

The upgrade CD would not accept the 25 alpha numeric `product ID' key. It would take 4 characters then jump to the next box. It would not allow you to return to the previous box and back fill the missing letter or number. In short, you could not ever enter the correct product ID. I can't say more about this version as I could not get past this point.

The Full (non upgrade) version seemed more stable. It accepted the `product ID' key at least but that is where the problems began.

The first problem I had was that in PowerPoint there was no preview. Sure enough, less than 30 days out and there was a critical upgrade to fix this problem.

I went to the Microsoft Update page to download it. It failed several times. I then contacted Microsoft Technical support. This is a known problem and you must download (at least for now) all updated to your local hard drive and install from there. If they don't solve this problem, its going to be a major problem when there are more than a few updates for Office 2003 available.

I also started to receive `run time error messages' when I used Microsoft Internet Explorer. Microsoft technical support says this is not an Office 2003 issue, but an Operating System issue. Sure it is! I did not have this problem before I installed Office 2003. The resolution was to disable all Third Party devices (such as the Google tool bar), and remove some other things as well.

The new Outlook interface looks great, but what good is a great looking interface if it does not work?

For some reason, email sent using Outlook 2003 is identified as `Spam' by several spam filtering programs, including Spam Assassin. I found this out when some people I was sending email to did not reply. I telephoned one of them and said they had not received any email form me. They then checked and found it in the `spam' folder. Here is the error message that Outlook 2003 generated:

> Content analysis details: (5.70 points, 5 required)
> FORGED_YAHOO_RCVD (2.7 points) 'From' yahoo.com does not match 'Received'
> headers
> MSG_ID_ADDED_BY_MTA_2 (0.8 points) 'Message-Id' was added by a relay
> (2) FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK (2.2 points) Forged mail pretending to be from
> MS Outlook MISSING_OUTLOOK_NAME (0.0 points) Message looks like
> Outlook, but isn't

This is also a known problem to Microsoft Technical Support. The fix is to turn off all firewall and virus protection and to remove some networking package updates. I tried this but it still did not solve the problem. It remains unresolved.

I had more problems but I think this illustrates the point that this product was just released to soon.

If you enjoy `bleeding edge' technology, this is for you. If you are looking for something that works without `bleeding edge' features (bugs or problems) then take to heart the advice I was given by Microsoft Technical Support; ". . . I usually wait 6 months after a release before I upgrade. By then most of the major problems have been resolved."

Sage Advice!

As for me, I am returning to an earlier edition of Office at least for a while.

Here is the phone number for Microsoft Technical Support. If you buy this product right now, you are going to need it: 1-888-346-5229

Good Luck, your going to need it!