Microsoft Office XP

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Microsoft Office XP
Developed by	Microsoft
Latest release	Service Pack 3 / March 9, 2004 (2004-03-09); 1656 days ago
OS	Windows NT 4.0 and later
Platform	Microsoft Windows
Type	Office suite
License	Proprietary EULA
Website	Microsoft Office Online Home Page

Microsoft Office XP is a productivity suite written and distributed by Microsoft for their Windows operating system. It was the successor to Office 2000 and the predecessor to Office 2003, and was known as Office 10 in the early stages of its development cycle.

Overview

Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001.^[1] It has received three service packs during its lifetime. Mainstream support for Office XP ended on July 11, 2006, with extended Support scheduled to end on July 12, 2011.^[2]

Components

• Word 2002
• Excel 2002
• Outlook 2002
• PowerPoint 2002
• Publisher 2002
• Access 2002
• FrontPage 2002

Editions

The component products were packaged together in alternative combinations. Some of these editions were available as retail packages in either full or upgrade versions, others were available as OEM versions for inclusion with new PCs. All editions provided the core components of Word, Excel and Outlook. All editions except the Small Business edition provided Powerpoint, while both the OEM editions included Publisher.^[3]

• Office XP Standard Edition
• Office XP Professional + Access
• Office XP Developer Edition + Access, Frontpage
• Office XP Professional Special Edition + Access, FrontPage, Publisher

• Office XP Small Business Edition (OEM)
• Office XP Professional with Publisher (OEM) + PowerPoint, Access

Features

Microsoft Office XP, released in 2001, is a major upgrade with numerous enhancements and changes.

• Safe Mode: This feature allows applications such as Outlook to boot when it might otherwise fail. Safe Mode enables Office to detect and either repair or bypass the source of the problem, such as a corrupted registry or a misbehaving add-in.
• Smart tag: New technology delivered with Office XP. Some smart tags operate based on user activity, such as helping with typing errors. These smart tags are supplied with the products, and are not programmable. For developers, though, there is the ability to create custom smart tags. In Office XP, custom smart tags could work only in Word and Excel.
• Product Activation: Office XP incorporates product activation technology to prevent software piracy. This feature is also implemented in Windows XP (and later versions of Windows and Office).
• Speech and handwriting recognition are features new to Office XP, shared among all Office applications as well as Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. The speech recognition feature encompasses two different functions, Dictation and Voice Command. Dictation provides users the ability to dictate words that will be transcribed into typed text in a Office program, while Voice Command is used to invoke menu options and commands via voice. Handwriting recognition allows users to enter text by writing instead of typing.
• Clipboard functionality has been greatly improved. The clipboard now stores up to 24 items and is located in the task pane. The Clipboard task pane also displays a thumbnail view of a copied item, whether it consists of text, numbers, or a graphic.
• A major change to the Office XP application environment is the introduction of task panes. A task pane is a multi-purpose windowpane that appears on the right side of the window of an Office application. A task pane is basically used to house a number of features that were formerly controlled using dialog boxes, such as opening a new file or inserting clip art into an application document.
• Office XP sports a streamlined, flatter look compared to previous versions of Microsoft Office. It was designed to be used in combination with Windows Whistler's Watercolor theme, which was abandoned in favour of Luna when Windows XP was released.

The Office Assistant, included in Microsoft Office 97 and subsequent versions until Office 2007, is disabled by default in Office XP. A key element of Microsoft's advertising campaign for Office XP was the removal of Clippit and other Office assistants.

Naming conventions

Microsoft Office XP was released in conjunction with Windows XP. Despite their naming similarities, Office XP is compatible with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000 and Windows Me, not just Windows XP. It is not compatible with Windows 95 as Office 2000 is the last supported version.

It is also the last supported version for Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows Me and Windows NT 4.0.

The individual components within Office XP are assigned the "2002" suffix, rather than "XP": Word 2002 and Excel 2002, for example.

See also

• Comparison of office suites
• List of office suites

External links

• Office XP Solution Center
• Downloads for Office XP - Downloads - Microsoft Office Online

References