Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 (3 Users, PC)

I have been using Microsoft Office for about 25 years, and have used just about every version. My special area of interest is Microsoft Word, which I have written with and programmed professionally for a living for most of that time.

If you have used Office 2007, the look of Office 2010 applications will be familiar. The most obvious change is that the Office button has gone, replaced by a new File tab just left of the Home tab. The File tab is where you'll find many document-related features, such as information (properties), recent files list, new document creation, sharing, help, and of course printing. All these features have been improved, though none more than the print feature, which has had a major overhaul. It is now easier to use. Its new layout has plenty of space to explain options, and it offers one of the best print-previews I have ever seen outside a professional DTP package.

The ribbon may now be customized. This takes a bit of fiddling, but it is quite easy if you take a moment to watch one of the tutorials on Microsoft's website. This enables you to add any command you like to the ribbon, including macros.

Some of the new text effects in Word are cool-looking but not especially useful to commercial authors. For example, reflections under headings look nice, but nobody would seriously entertain using them in a business presentation or a user guide. However, they do offer some fun design options for informal documents.
PDF-making is now built-in. It used to be available only as a free download (due to a spat between Microsoft and Adobe). The PDFs it makes are acceptable but lack the quality and features of Adobe PDF offerings. That said, you may improve your PDF output by installing a free package such as Nitro PDF, which makes better quality PDFs

The inclusion of OneNote is a plus. OneNote has been overlooked my many users, but it is a powerful note-making tool. I use it to jot ideas for projects. The ability to drop any file into a OneNote page makes it a handy place to dump pictures, video, audio comments, documents and website links for reference.

My only gripe is that, yet again, almost nothing has been added to VBA - the macro programming language built-in to Office applications. Most people don't use it, but it is the most powerful feature in Office. With it, you can make Word, Excel and so on, do just about anything you want it to do. If you can master VBA, then you will have absolute control over Office and the things you create using it.

We've installed Office 2010 on a couple of Windows 7 laptops, and an old Pentium M-based Windows XP laptop. All were fresh installations, and all worked fine. I've read many reviews here that have complained about the terrible installation process, but I had no problems at all. Putting software and hardware clashes aside, the trick is to choose CUSTOM installation (there's an option for this after you enter your licence code). That way you can choose NOT to install the demos of Microsoft Access and Microsoft Outlook. I am startled at how responsive it is in XP, with such a low-powered CPU. It installs in about 1.5GB, which is not bad these days.

Once you have installed it, I recommend clicking the "Continue Online" button to download and install all the updates (there are quite a few). These patch a few problems and generally bring your installation up to date.

Overall it's a pleasing step-up from Office 2007, especially with regard to the new File tab. The new features are not earth-shattering, but I have found them useful and worth the money. For about £25 per licence, it's a relatively inexpensive way to stay up to date with Microsoft Office.

I fully concur with the other Reviews complaining about the unfriendly nature of the upgrade procedure and I consider myself reasonably computer literate having built several over the last few years. If you have Outlook installed already and you don't want it screwed up, then you must do a custom install and you MUST untick the option of installing a trial version of Office 10 (which is in the small print at the bottom of the options page). Microsoft - you could do better! The Office suite is similar to Office 2007 once you get it installed.

I bought Office 2010 Home and Student edition as a partial upgrade for the full Office 2007. As Outlook is over spec-ed and overpriced for the average Joe (i.e. me) I decided not to bother with the 2010 Outlook upgrade which is not included with this cheaper version. Fair enough, you might think - but you'd be wrong.

The default install option for Office 2010 Home and Student assumes you want to upgrade the WHOLE package. Mr Ballmer, if I'd wanted the full package I would have BOUGHT the full package. The end result, on the first attempt, is that - as you'd expect - Word, Excel and PowerPoint are upgraded to the new versions. Very disquietingly though, Outlook 2007 is removed and you are, very generously (not!), offered a "free" 30-day trial of Outlook 2010.

Now, imagine, though you probably don't have to, how important most people's e-mail software is to them: work, photos, silly attachments, love letters, whatever. Now imagine how ****ing furious you would be to discover that nice friendly Microsoft has removed this for you without even asking or so much as hinting! OK, OK not gone for good, maybe, but I have used PCs since the days of MS-DOS and although I was never a whizz, I know my way around. I also know the stomach-churning "Oh ****, I've accidentally erased the contents of my hard drive" feeling and momentarily, this Office installation software gives you that same sensation. I can only presume the intention is to make you feel like an inferior being for not having purchased the full upgrade.

Anyway, I had to go back to square one and, for the first time in my life EVER, run a custom install. Easy enough - you might think but even that's not straightforward. The custom menu is sparse: listing the various MS Office programs and asking which ones you want to "remove". Remove? REMOVE? I don't want to remove anything, upgrade, yes, remove no. The position is further confused by a tick-box option for each program. Now what does that mean - does the tick in the box mean you want to keep the software, or remove it? Maybe I'm just thick.

ANYWAY, four system restores and 5 installation attempts later I finally got the thing working. I couldn't even tell you what I did to get it working as I wanted because the process was very much trial and error. An evening wasted for which, Steve, you owe me £90.

If you get this pre-installed on a PC you won't know what I'm on about, so...

As for the software - aye, it's not bad. Word has a slightly more business-like interface than the 2007 version and the "find" (word search) function is one of the best I've encountered. Excel's previously slightly sickly appearance has been improved. Performance-wise I'm not an Excel expert but I would say that they have missed one trick here which is that moving between the worksheets in a file could maybe have been souped-up a bit to make it more like recent versions of Windows (i.e. you get a mini-window preview when you hover over the tab). For many, the Excel modifications will seem like a cosmetic difference only.

Don't avoid Office 2010 if it comes on your new PC, but avoid this upgrade package. Life's too short.