SOFTWARE TITLE: Windows
Office XP Developer
PUBLISHER: Microsoft
REVIEWED BY: Rose Miller
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Windows 98, Windows 98 Second
Edition, Windows Me,
Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6 or later, Windows 2000, or
Windows XP or later. CD-ROM drive, Super VGA (800 × 600) or
higher-resolution monitor with 256 colors, Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft
IntelliMouse, or compatible pointing device. Computer with a Pentium III 133-MHz or higher
processor, RAM requirements depend on the operating system used. Microsoft
Exchange Server requires 128 MB of RAM, and Microsoft SQL Server requires 64 MB
of RAM: Windows 98, or Windows 98
Second Edition : 24 MB of RAM plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each
Office application running
simultaneously. Windows Me, or Microsoft Windows NT: 32 MB of RAM plus
an additional 8 MB of RAM for each Office application running simultaneously. Windows 2000 Professional: 64 MB of
RAM plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each Office application running simultaneously.
Windows XP Professional,
or Windows XP Home Edition: 128 MB of RAM plus an additional 8 MB of RAM
for each Office application running simultaneously. Hard disk space requirements will vary
depending on configuration. 450 MB of available hard disk space, with 115 MB on
the hard disk where the operating system is installed. Some items and services
require additional hard disk space
REVIEW:
I have been using Office 2000 with my Windows XP Home
Edition. I found a few incompatibility issues for the non-administrative users
on my pc. We had problems running the programs (they would start to load then
just disappear or they would not save the project being worked on). This is
when I decided to give Office XP a try.
I have discovered there are no conflicts using the Office
XP. Everything runs very smoothly. There’s no more switching to an
administrator screen just so another user can use an Office application.
The programs we use the most would be Word, PowerPoint
and FrontPage. I have 2 children, middle and high school age, who use the first
two very often. Other programs included are Excel, Access, Outlook, Developer tools, Visual SourceSafe 6.0b, Exchange 2000
Server and SQL Server 2000.
I find Word is the absolute best program to use for
reports, letters, reviews or any type of document you may need to compose. It
comes with various templates, styles and visual themes to make your document
look really impressive. You can even implement camera-ready materials. Most
schools are using Word on their systems, so it’s very convenient and sensible
to use at home as well. That way all the documents will be uniform. It’s a
pretty easy program to use. The menus and toolbars are great. There are no
keyboard commands to memorize because everything you need is a click of the
mouse away. The spell and grammar check features are super options. Never hurts
to check and double check for errors!
There have been several improvements in the Word program.
Document collaborations allow multiple users to work on and edit a document at
the same time. It simply makes copies of the document for each user and merges
the document back together to make a new and improved product. Tasks you may
use everyday have been made easier. You can select different areas in a
document by holding the CTRL key. The Find and Replace dialog box is now more
consistent when using it with excel. There’s also a new feature, the Drawing
Canvas. This feature let’s you create a drawing area where all objects in this
area have an absolute position. A few
other new and improved features are Format Checker, improved printing options,
html editor, AutoCorrect and Unicode support.
Power Point is another program used very often in the
schools these days. We all know this program is really great for a business to
show the different aspects of their product, but it’s also great for students
to use for impressive and very creative reports. There are several tools that
make it easier to edit and review a presentation. You can save a presentation
with password protection. You can also attach a digital signature to your work.
The animation option can be applied along with transition schemes. This will
save a lot of time. There are some new and really neat slide transition effects
which include comb, fade smoothly, newsflash, push, shape, wedge, and wheel.
These new features make for a very creative and exciting presentation. This
program is also very user friendly.
Creating websites can be very timely and confusing if you
don’t know much about the html language used to create pages. With FrontPage,
you don’t really have to worry about all of that. You can create a dynamic page
in a relatively short time. It will write the codes for you. You can easily add
graphics, hyperlinks, frames, and tables, everything you need to make your
website look professional and unique. The options are all laid out in easy to
use interface. It makes creating a website very fun.
I am an Outlook Express user. I opened Microsoft Outlook
and found that importing all my OE mail, rules and folder was a very simple
task. The wizard did everything for me. I setup the options of how I wanted the
program to look in appearance, editing the toolbar to my personal preferences. You
can even set up your Hotmail account with ease.
Office
XP now also has some advanced text to speech ability. Using Excel, you can have
vocal feedback whenever you finish entering information into a cell. In Word,
you can have paragraphs read back to you. There is a floating toolbar in each
application when you open office with the various text to speech functions.
Smart
tags are one of the most helpful improvements the Office XP programs. They have
a different type of underlining which is purple. Each program may use them in a
different way. After something has been auto-corrected in Word, they will show
this tag, making it easier to deselect the auto-correction, and turn off
auto-correction for that feature. After pasting a cell in Excel, the selections
may include things like ‘ignore formatting’ or ‘paste only the formatting’.
Items such as recognized email names and addresses will auto-complete for you
and, when right clicked, they give options that let you add them to your
Outlook list. These tags are also programmable with Visual Basic, so you can
program your own tags to query data from a company database.
Office
XP Developer provides everything you need for your building solutions. It
allows you to take advantage of the application programmability for easy access
to the pre-built platform to easily customize your building solutions. There
are more than 600 programmable objects supplied to the developer. There is a
lot of flexibility here. This program is not necessarily meant for the home
user. It is intended more for the business user who wishes to have productivity
tools to build applications faster and make their applications work seamlessly
with data and on the internet. This is where the SQL Server and Exchange really
work into the program. You need a lot of security when using the web for things
like payroll, employee information and other data that should not be viewed by
unauthorized persons. You can specify
various permission rights to fit the individual’s need to access certain
information.
I’ve
seen a lot of complaints about the activation policy of Microsoft software. Everyone
seems to be afraid that if they make any changes to their PC, the programs will
stop working or it will cost you to reactivate. This is not true. Changes such
as video card, sound card and memory upgrades do not affect the software. Major
changes, such as a new hard drive, will require you to contact Microsoft. It’s
simple and pretty painless. Re-installation on the same computer will require
activation but it will not cost anything. Office XP allows you to install on a
desktop and a laptop as long as everything co-insides with the original and
primary purchaser. Activation can be done via telephone or internet.
I
believe Office XP is a very beneficial program for home users as well as
businesses. There is a package to fit everyone’s needs. The Office XP Developer
will average in cost at about $799 for new user and $549 for upgrade. Other new
user suite prices vary for from $149 for teaches and students to $549 for
professional version. Upgrades are less expensive. You can even purchase
individual programs starting at $199 and up for new users.
I am
very pleased with the overall looks and ease of the software. The users manuals are very helpful and easy to follow. The new features are fantastic and significant.
If you have school aged kids, this makes their work a lot easier to accomplish.
Business will be more productive and organized. Get yourself a copy!
EASE OF INSTALLATION RATING:
10
EASE OF USE RATING: 9
DOCUMENTATION: 10
OVERALL RATING: 9
REVIEWER INFORMATION: Rose
Miller lives in