Microsoft Office XP

History

At a meeting with financial analysts in July 2000, Microsoft demonstrated Office XP, then known by its codename, Office 10, which was reported to include a subset of features designed in accordance with the company's .NET strategy. SharePoint Portal Server 2001, then codenamed Tahoe, was also in development at this time and was slated to improve collaboration for users of Office 2000 and Office 10. In August, Microsoft released Office 10 Beta 1 for product evaluation purposes. At the time, Office 10 was characterized as an interim release between its predecessor, Office 2000, and a then unnamed version of Office with a particular emphasis on NetDocs, the codename for InfoPath. Office 10 was slated to include integrated speech recognition, and new formatting options. Steven Sinofsky, then Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Business Productivity Group, also indicated that Office 10 would include improved collaboration capabilities and enhanced support for web services. Reports stated that Office 10 would provide Smart Tags (formerly Smart Links), and a Digital Dashboard web portal complete with Web Parts; these features integrate with SharePoint Portal Server 2001. Office XP Beta 1 was compatible with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 SP5, and Windows 2000.

Prior to the release of Office 10 Beta 2, there was speculation that Microsoft intended to rebrand the new product as "Office 2001," "Office 2002," "Office.NET," or "Office XP." The latter was shorthand for eXPerience and was positioned as a brand that would emphasize the new experiences enabled by the product. At the time, Microsoft intended to name the latest version of Visual Studio as "Visual Studio .NET" but unnamed sources stated that the company did not desire to do the same with Office 10, as the product was only partially related to the company's .NET strategy. Microsoft ultimately decided on "Office XP" as the final name of the product and used the same brand for Windows XP, then codenamed Whistler, which was developed concurrently. In spite of this, individual Office XP products such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Word would continue to use Microsoft's year-based naming conventions and were named after the year 2002.

Office XP Beta 2 was released to 10,000 technical testers in late 2000. Beta 2 introduced several improvements to setup tools such as the Custom Maintenance Wizard that allowed setup components to be modified after their installation; the setup process itself used a new version of Windows Installer. Microsoft also terminated the product's support for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 SP5. After the release of Beta 2, Microsoft announced a Corporate Preview Kit Program for Office XP that would allow up to 500,000 corporate customers to evaluate a Corporate Preview Beta version of the product on a total of 10 machines per copy; individual copies cost $19.95 and expired on August 31, 2001.

Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001 and was later made available to retail on May 31, 2001.

Service packs

Microsoft released a total of three service packs for Office XP that introduced security enhancements, stability improvements, and fixes for software bugs throughout the product's lifecycle. All service packs were made available as separate Client and Administrative (Full File) updates. Client updates were intended for users who installed Office XP from a CD-ROM and could be obtained from the Microsoft Office Update website or as standalone downloads. Client updates required the Office XP installation media during the installation process and could not be removed after they were installed. Full file updates were intended for network administrators to deploy updates to Office XP users who installed the product from a server location. Users could also manually install full file updates. Full file updates require Windows Installer 2.0; Office XP shipped with Windows Installer 1.1. On September 25, 2001, Microsoft released Windows Installer 2.0 for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME; and Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. Windows Installer 2.0 shipped with Windows XP.

Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released on December 11, 2001 and included numerous reliability and performance improvements that were influenced by error reports submitted by Office XP users; SP1 also introduced security enhancements to Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, and resolved an issue that prevented documents from being saved to MSN Groups.

Service Pack 2 (SP2) was released on August 21, 2002 and included all previously available standalone updates; some of the updates included cumulative security patches for Excel and Word to address potentially malicious code embedded in document macros. The Administrative Update version of SP2 is cumulative—SP1 does not have to be installed—while the Client Update version requires SP1 to be installed. Only full file updates released after SP2 can be applied directly to client installations of Office XP. Earlier updates were designed to update only administrative images and fail when applied directly to clients.

Service Pack 3 (SP3) was a update released on March 30, 2004 that included all previously released updates, as well as exclusive stability improvements based on feedback and error reports received from Office XP users; SP3 does not require any earlier service packs to be installed. However, if a Office XP client was updated from a patched administrative image, the full file version of SP3 must be installed.

User interface

Office XP supports a streamlined, flatter appearance when compared with previous versions Office. According to Microsoft this involved "removing visually competing elements, visually prioritizing items on a page, increasing letter spacing and word spacing for better readability, and defining foreground and background color to bring the most important elements to the front."

Smart tags

Excel 2002 and Word 2002 introduce support for smart tags, commands for specific types of text including addresses, calendar dates, personal names, telephone numbers, ticker symbols, or tracking numbers in documents. A smart tag is denoted by a dotted purple underline underneath actionable text in a document; hovering over this text with the mouse cursor displays an icon that presents a list of related commands when invoked with a mouse click or the Alt+⇧ Shift+F10 keyboard shortcut. A ticker symbol smart tag in Excel can present the latest stock information in a cell within a workbook, for example, while a contact name smart tag in a Word document can display options to send an e-mail message to or schedule a meeting with that contact. Excel and Word support extensible smart tags that allow developers and organizations to display custom commands related to specific information. The smart tags used by Word are also available in Outlook 2002 if the former is configured as the default e-mail editor.

The AutoCorrect and Paste Options commands in previous versions of Office have been updated to include smart tags that are shared among all Office XP programs. The AutoCorrect smart tag provides individual options to revert an automatic correction or to prohibit an automatic correction from occurring in the future, and also provides access to the AutoCorrect Options dialog box. It is represented as a small, blue box when the mouse cursor is positioned over corrected text. The Paste Options smart tag provides options to retain original formatting of content, change the formatting based on the currently active program, or to provide contextually specific characteristics to content after users paste it from the clipboard.

Microsoft previously provided a repository for smart tags on its website that could be installed by users. Examples of third-party companies that produced smart tags after the release of Office XP include ESPN, Expedia, FedEx, and MSNBC. Microsoft notably released a Euro Currency Converter smart tag when new euro coins and notes were introduced on January 1, 2002.

Task panes

Office XP introduces a task pane interface that consolidates popular menu bar commands on the right side of the screen to facilitate quick access to them. Office XP includes Startup, Search, Clipboard, and Insert Clip Art task panes, as well as task panes that are exclusive to certain programs. Word 2002, for example, includes a task pane dedicated to style and formatting options, while PowerPoint 2002 includes one dedicated to the arrangement of content in slides. Users can switch between open task panes through the use of back and forward buttons; a drop-down list also presents specific task panes that users can switch to.

The default Startup task pane is automatically available when users launch an Office XP program and presents individual commands to open an existing file, create a new blank file or one from a template, add a network location, or open Office Help. The Search task pane includes individual Basic and Advanced modes and allows users to query local or remote locations for files. The Basic mode allows users to perform full-text searches, while the Advanced mode provides additional file property query options. An index such as the Indexing Service can improve how quickly results are returned after a search is performed.

The Insert Clip Art task pane is available in Excel, FrontPage, PowerPoint, and Word and provides options to search for and insert online clip art into files. The Office Clipboard has been redesigned as the Clipboard task pane across all Office XP programs and can accommodate up to 24 clipboard items compared to 12 in Office 2000. Clipboard items provide a visual representation to help users distinguish different types of content. The Office Clipboard task pane opens when at least two items are copied.

Other UI changes

XML support

Access 2002 and Excel 2002 support exporting and importing XML. Users can also save Excel workbooks as XML spreadsheets.

Office Open XML Compatibility Pack

In 2006, Microsoft released a compatibility pack for Office 2000 SP3, Office XP SP3, and Office 2003 SP1 that enables users to open, edit, and save Excel, PowerPoint, and Word Office Open XML documents introduced in Office 2007. The compatibility pack requires Windows 2000 SP4, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP SP1, or later versions of Windows. The update also enables compatibility with documents created in Office 2010, Office 2013, and Office 2016.

Handwriting recognition

Office XP introduces handwriting recognition in all Office programs, allowing users to write with a mouse or stylus instead of entering text by typing on a keyboard. Users can insert handwritten notes into Excel, add handwritten comments to PowerPoint presentations, send handwritten e-mail messages with Outlook, or write directly into Word documents. Notes written with a handheld PC or a Pocket PC can be converted into Word documents, and handwritten content in Word documents can be converted to text. Word must be the active e-mail editor in Outlook before handwritten e-mail messages can be sent. Once installed, handwriting functionality is also available in Internet Explorer 5 and Outlook Express 5 or later. Handwriting recognition engines are available for the English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean versions of Office XP.

The downloadable Tablet Pack for Office XP provided an extension for Windows Journal to reuse notes as Outlook 2002 items and to import meeting information from Outlook 2002 into notes.

Speech recognition

Speech recognition based on Microsoft Research technology is available for all Office XP programs, allowing users to dictate text into active documents, to change document formatting, and to navigate the Office XP user interface by voice. The speech recognition feature encompasses two different modes: Dictation, which transcribes spoken words into text, and Voice Command, which invokes dialog box, menu, and toolbar features.

Speech recognition can be installed during Office XP setup or by clicking the Speech option in the Tools menu in Word 2002. When installed, it is available as a Microphone command on the Language toolbar that appears in the upper-right corner of the screen (lower-right corner in East-Asian versions of Office XP). When launched for the first time, speech recognition offers a tutorial to improve recognition accuracy, which begins by providing instructions to adjust the microphone for optimal performance. Speech recognition uses a speech profile to store information about a user's voice.

Users can configure speech recognition settings, including pronunciation sensitivity in voice command mode, accuracy and recognition response time in dictation mode, and microphone settings through the Speech control panel applet. The Regional and Language Options applet provides Language toolbar and additional settings. Speech recognition engines are available for the English, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese languages.

Reliability

With Office XP, Microsoft incorporated several features to address reliability issues observed in previous versions of Office:

Security

Excel, PowerPoint, and Word have been updated to provide password encryption options based on CryptoAPI. Additionally, all Office XP programs provide options for users to digitally sign documents.

Installation and deployment

When upgrading from a previous version of Office, Office XP retains the user's previous configuration. Office XP can also be installed directly from an administrative image hosted on a web server via HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP. The Office Resource Kit includes various improvements to deployment functionality when compared with the Office 2000 version. A new Setup INI Customization Wizard allows administrators to customize the Office XP INI configuration file prior to deployment. The Custom Installation Wizard can prohibit the installation, use, or uninstallation of programs or features such as the Run from Network and Installed on First Use setup options. Finally, the Custom Maintenance Wizard has been updated to provide customization options to configure Office XP including user preferences and security settings.

The Save My Settings Wizard, introduced in Office 2000 as an optional download for Microsoft account users to remotely store their Office settings to the Office Update web site, has been updated to support importing and exporting backups to local storage or to a network share.

In an effort to curtail software piracy, Microsoft has incorporated product activation technology into all versions of Office XP to prohibit users from installing a single copy of the software in a manner that violates the end-user license agreement (EULA). The EULA allows a single user to install one copy each on a primary device and a portable device such as a laptop. Users who make substantial hardware changes to an Office XP device may need to reactivate the software through the Internet or by telephone. Product activation does not require personally identifiable information.

Office XP introduced an optional subscription-based activation model that allowed consumers to annually license the product and receive incremental updates at a reduced price when compared with the cost of a full retail version. Microsoft originally intended to deliver the activation model to United States customers after the retail availability of Office XP on May 31, 2001, but later decided to make it available to consumers in "a few select locations" instead, citing a more cautious delivery approach. In spite of this, Microsoft distributed optical media and a single subscription to authorized U.S. retail partners who attended teamMicrosoft Live! events. As part of a pilot experiment, consumers in Australia, France, and New Zealand could purchase a subscription for Office XP starting in May 2001; the worldwide release of the activation model was contingent on the success of the pilot experiment, but Microsoft terminated support for subscriptions in 2002 based on feedback and research that demonstrated it was not well understood by consumers. Office 365, released over a decade after Office XP, reintroduced subscription-based licenses to consumers.

User assistance

Office XP introduces improvements to the user assistance experience when compared with previous versions. A new "Ask a Question" feature appears in the top-right corner of all Office XP programs and allows users to type natural language questions and receive answers without opening the Office Assistant or Office Help. Additionally, Office Help has been updated to aggregate and display content from the Internet in response to a query. The Office Assistant is now disabled by default and only appears when Help is activated.

Removed features

Editions

The component products were packaged together in various suites. Some of these editions were available as retail packages in either full or upgrade versions, others as full OEM versions for inclusion with new PCs, and still others as volume license versions that required no activation. All editions provided the core components of Word, Excel, and Outlook, and all editions except the Small Business edition provided PowerPoint.

Reception

Microsoft Office XP received mixed to positive reviews after its release. CNET praised the new collaboration and data recovery features, and stated that Office XP offered a "host of incremental improvements" over its predecessor, Office 2000, but ultimately concluded that "most enhancements and additions are better suited for groups than individuals." Criticism was also directed at the productivity suite's strict hard disk space requirement and its incompatibility with Windows 95. Nevertheless, CNET bestowed Office XP with a 4-star editors' rating. PC Magazine rated Office XP 4 stars out of 5 and praised the product's emphasis on user control, particularly in regards to customization options for features introduced in previous versions, and regarded it as "one of the few Microsoft upgrades that offers almost no pains with its significant gains." The New York Times stated that Office XP "isn't so much a list of new features as it is an improved arrangement of old ones," but offered praise for the new collaboration features, which were regarded as a "huge leap" from previous versions. Paul Thurrott regarded Office XP as "a must-have upgrade for writers such as myself," though he also stated that, without the new smart tags feature, it "has the feel of a minor upgrade with numerous useful, but small, changes."

While most assessments of Office XP were positive, the speech recognition feature was frequently criticized due to its inaccuracy and lack of advanced functionality. CNET regarded it as "especially lame" because of its inability to recognize text editing commands such as "select the sentence" and because it required users to manually switch between command and dictation modes. PC Magazine stated that both the speech recognition and handwriting recognition features were not "reliable enough for general use." However, in a later assessment, PC Magazine stated that the "speech recognition is reasonably accurate, but there are very few commands for editing and correcting text" and recommended Dragon NaturallySpeaking, IBM ViaVoice, or Voice Xpress for dictation. The New York Times speculated that Microsoft had little to no confidence in the feature, as it is not installed by default and no microphone is included with Office XP; however, it concluded that it was "not bad for a freebie, especially if you would rather get the first draft down quickly and clean up the recognition errors later." Paul Thurrott stated that "the voice recognition is so bad it's almost not even worth discussing," concluding that it "is sort of a joke" when compared with mature products such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking.