New Ways to Try and Buy Microsoft Office 2010

The Microsoft Office Team has announced some changes in the way that it will make Microsoft Office available on machines that are pre-loaded with Office by an OEM. Two notable changes are;

  • You can unlock a pre-loaded version via a Product Key Card. There is no need to uninstall any trial and then reinstall it with the CD/DVD that came with the boxed version.
  • Microsoft Works will go away and will be replaced by the free Microsoft Office Starter 2010. It will only be available for shipment with new PCs and contain a reduced-functionality, advertising-supported version of Word and Excel.

Another change is in the way that you can try (and buy) Office 2010 on existing PCs via Click-to-Run.