A quick look at MS Office 2010 beta system requirements

I loaded up the Office 2010 beta the other day and I am finally getting some time to play with it this weekend. So far I like it but several of my Outlook synchronizations broke (not unexpected) and I decided to take a look at what the system requirements are. The first thing that jumps out at me is the Operating System requirements. You will need at  least, Windows XP with Service Pack 3 installed. I suspect that this will be one of the reasons that we some push to new equipment. The Memory requirements (256 MB) is still low but like 2007, I wouldn’t run it with less than 2GB, which I suggest for any system right now as the bare minimum. Always remember that minimum requirements are not optimum requirements. You never really run a program at its minimum specs.

The display minimums was the other specification that jumped out at me. I am already sensitive to the screen limitations on my NetBook so I really look at these closely. Most of your 10.1 inch NetBooks have a 1024x600 screen and most of the first units, that were 8.9 inch were the same resolution. Any way, the recommended resolution is 1024 x 768 which is no problem for desktop and notebooks. Five programs will fall within the screen resolution guidelines which include Excel, Outlook, OneNote, PowerPoint and Word. That leaves Access, Publisher, InfoPath and Visio that will not work on your NetBook. Since you have probably read before that I don’t believe a NetBook is a true production machine but more of a research, communication and light writing device then maybe this isn’t a great problem. My next step is to try loading it onto my NetBook and seeing just what the limitations are.

Below are links to the Beta Versions of Office, Visio and Office Web Apps. If you click on the Office 2010 Beta image above you will be taken to the the Office 2010 support page.

Downloads Download Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta Download Visio Premium 2010 Beta Download Microsoft Office Web Apps Beta