The Send for Review feature further streamlines the collaborative process by allowing the sender to view revisions made by multiple parties within the framework of the original document. Outlook now features a color-coded calendar and easier meeting management, along with instant messaging and variable e-mail account access. All user system errors can be tracked globally, and network security settings then modified remotely while antivirus and debugging IT resources are diverted accordingly.

After firing up Microsoft Word, typing "Dear Somebody," and hitting the Enter key, we made a startling discovery. Up popped Clippy, Microsoft's publicly pink-slipped office assistant. Clippy might have aptly announced, "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," but instead predictably observed, "It looks like you're writing a letter." Once the groans of disbelief had subsided, we quickly right-clicked and banished Clippy to the silicon ether, presumably forever. --Dominic Johnson

This version is only available for students and teachers and will not be able to be upgraded in the future.

Amazon.com Product Description
Microsoft Office XP Standard is designed for users who need only the core desktop productivity tools. It offers several new features for simplifying productivity and enabling collaboration by extending Office beyond the desktop. Office XP Standard includes the core Office XP programs: Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.

Office XP works with you, whatever your needs. Whether you're working on your PC, intranet, or the Web, new context-sensitive smart tags pop up with the options you need, when you need them. No more digging through menus to find the right function. And tasks that once required multiple steps are just one click away with the new task pane. Take advantage of all the features in Office XP applications to get more done in less time. Collaborating with a team is also easier with Office XP--time-consuming routing procedures have been eliminated. Now, just click Send For Review to make short work of combining revisions from multiple reviewers into a single document.

Your work is safe with Office XP. AutoRecover saves documents at regular intervals while you work. You no longer have to worry about losing hours of work from a power outage, either. The Document Recovery feature is designed to save and recover your work-in-progress, with the ability to invoke a corrupt-document repair-and-recovery feature in the event of an error or a failure to load a file. Note: This version is for students and teachers only and will not be able to be upgraded in the future.

The bottom line for me was that, in exchange for a little loss in flexibility, I have a complete office suite for a very reasonable price. I had no problem registering or activating it, but understand that others have. I likewise understand that I can't move it to a new machine. My other qualm is that there is essentially no operating information, so if you have a problem in a program, you have no documentation to refer to, which meant for me, that I needed to buy the program information books at additional expense. It's a tradeoff, but for most personal or student users, it is still a bargain.