Office 2000 Premium Part I: Word, Excel, and Outlook What's New in Office 2000 Premium Douglas Smith
Introduction Microsoft Office has been around just about as long as Windows has been popular and with each release many new and exciting features have been included. Microsoft Office 2000 Premium doesn't disappoint the anticipation in the least. The basic package is sporting something of a face-lift and has also included a few Small Business Tools that should make life much easier for many. Microsoft has included just about everything that the small business could ask for in a productivity package, and packed it all on four CDs in a nice newly designed package. There are most of the Office programs such as Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, and FrontPage, plus Internet Explorer 5.0 on disk one, with productivity tools such as Publisher, Photo Draw, and Small Business Tools on disk two through four.
The Major Changes In Office 2000 The very first thing that will hit you is the newly designed installation routine which gives much more control over which of the eight programs to install and how much precious hard disk each package will eat up. The total package consumes a whopping 526 MB, and Microsoft recommends another 100 MB for optimal performance for temp files when using user graphics. To really be serious and utilize MS Office you will need at least a Pentium Class PC 166 MHz or higher with at least 32 MB, and preferably 64 MB, of RAM for using Photo Draw or Publisher. This version requires Windows 95/98/ME/NT 4.0 SP 4 or higher/ or 2000, and at least a Super VGA or higher Monitor, CD, and Mouse.
We found the programs integrated quite well together and ran very smoothly on our AMD 700 Duron with 128 MB of RAM. For some reason the installation was much quicker than previous versions of the software--only 15 minutes to install the basic package. Microsoft has changed the look and feel considerably, with new icons to launch each application and great new Wizards. Now with MS Office having a far larger footprint than earlier versions, running on PCs that just meet the minimum qualifications could cause problems with speed and multitasking. Another major change in this version of Office is that Premium is geared more for collaboration and information sharing, allowing users to easily share documents, e-mail, databases, etc. Along with these new changes comes more defined Web integration and tools to make that integration more easy and universal.
Does It Feel The Same? The new Look and feel of MS Office is evident from the moment that you launch an application. Group collaboration is the biggest theme, and those running a small business or large corporation and using Office to share data with others shouldn't be disappointed. Most businesses and small offices are becoming more and more Web-dependent these days, and this is reflected in Microsoft's idea of how an office package should perform. Strong emphasis is placed on issues that Web users will find very compelling; sharing information is made much easier with the way each element blends with the others. Most of the applications feel similar with their predecessors, but with some new looks to interfaces in terms of colors, icons, and help evident also. Clearly, Microsoft has done its homework and really listened to its users; installation headaches have been addressed with the Demand feature for controlled installation of particular components. Simply click on a component and it is installed immediately, without fuss. Web enhancements which allow for better workgroup collaboration and end-user access to data seems to be the key here.
