Office 2003, the latest version of Microsoft's Office suite of productivity tools, comes in four editions: Academic, Standard, Small Business, and Professional. |
Office 2003 is undoubtedly the world's best known and most widely used productivity suite. The suite comes in several editions, from an academic version for noncommercial student and teacher use to the fully loaded Professional edition. All editions include the core programs:
1. Excel—spreadsheets
2. Outlook—email client and contact management
3. PowerPoint—presentations
4. Word—word processing
Depending on the edition you have, you may also have some or all of these programs:
1. Business Contact Manager—An add-on module for Outlook
2. Publisher—Desktop publishing
3. Access—A robust database creation and management program
Here's a look at what comes with each of the Office 2003 Editions:
Academic Edition: Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word
Standard Edition: Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word
Small Business: Excel, Outlook (with Business Contact Manager), PowerPoint, Word, Publisher
Professional: Excel, Outlook (with Business Contact Manager), PowerPoint, Word, Publisher, Access
No matter the edition, installation is straightforward and uniform. Follow these steps and you'll be up and running in no time.
- Shut down all other programs before beginning the Office 2003 installation.
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Microsoft products require entry of a 25-character product key during installation, as well as product activation within a limited number of days.
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Insert the installation CD into your optical drive. If AutoRun is enabled, the Office 2003 installation routine will launch automatically. If AutoRun is not enabled, right-click the Start button and click Explore. If need be, click the plus sign (+) to expand My Computer in the left pane and locate the Office 2003 installation CD underneath My Computer on your optical drive. It will likely be titled OFFICE11, although some other variation of "OFFICE" could be used. After locating it, click to highlight the CD, then find the Setup.exe file in the right pane and double-click it to launch the installation routine.
The installation routine automatically copies a number of files to your hard drive and prepares your system for the upcoming installation. You'll likely see several dialog and progress boxes on-screen as these processes take place. Depending on the speed of your computer, these processes can take anywhere from a couple of seconds to a minute or more. When they finish, you'll be presented with the first user-input screen of the installation, a prompt for your product key.
- The 25-character product key is usually found on an orange sticker, either on the CD case itself or on the product's Certificate Of Authenticity. Type the characters carefully; they're random, and typographical errors are common. If you enter the key incorrectly, a dialog box will appear that says You Have Not Entered A Valid Product Key. Click OK to clear the box, re-enter the product key, and click Next.
- On the next screen, you can enter up to three fields of user information: Username, initials, and organization. The information collected in these fields is used behind the scenes in Office documents to build detailed sets of data called metadata. Metadata records a variety of information about files created in Office, such as author, times and dates of creation and modification, and more. This information is then incorporated into the internal structure of the files and can be viewed in those files' properties. Depending on your personal privacy preferences, you may or may not wish to have this kind of information included in your Office files. Once you've entered (or not entered) the information, click Next to proceed.
- Next up is the EULA (End User License Agreement). This long-winded document is a contract between you, the user, and Microsoft, which spells out in great detail how you may and may not use the Office 2003 software. It's not negotiable. If you want to continue the installation, you must check the box to agree to the terms of the License Agreement and click Next.
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Information entered in these fields is embedded within the files you create in Office 2003.
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The next screen contains important choices about the way in which your Office 2003 installation will proceed and the way in which you'll be able to use Office 2003 after the installation has finished.
The choices are:
Typical Install—As the name implies, this option installs the programs and options most commonly used by the masses.
Complete Install—Installs every program and every option that your edition has to offer onto the hard drive.
Minimal Install—This is a bare-bones installation that is a viable choice if you're low on hard drive space.
Custom Install—Here's where you'll find maximum configurability. If you have a good idea of how you'll be using Office and its individual applications, this selection will let you tailor the installation more tightly to your specific needs.
In today's era of spacious hard drives, if you have the storage real estate to spare, we recommend the Complete Install option, particularly if you will use the software to produce work under time constraints. Limited or partial installations of Office can yield speed bumps to your productivity at the most inopportune moments. You may call up what you would expect to be a routine feature in Word, for example, and discover that the feature was never installed in the first place. When that happens, the program will run an installation routine that calls for the original installation CD to be placed in the original CD drive that was used during installation. If you don't have the CD handy, it's theoretically easy enough to cancel the routine and continue work without that feature, but as we all know, theory doesn't always yield the expected fruit. We've seen Word crash—more than once—when the program tried to install a requested feature and the original installation CD wasn't available. Though not as common, we've also seen BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) crashes in these situations. We've even encountered such crashes when we had the original installation disc, but the computer had been reconfigured so that the optical drive was assigned a different drive letter than was in use during the original installation. |
Make the check if you want to click Next.
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Reality is that these midstream feature installation routines can be time consuming and bothersome to the nth degree. If you can spare the 650MB, go with a Complete Install. This option will install every program, every feature, and every bit of included content, such as clip art and photos, onto the hard drive where it's ready for use at any time.
If you don't have the space for a Complete Install, but you still want to avoid the above scenario, the Custom Install may be the choice for you. When you select Custom Install and click Next, the resulting screen will let you tailor the installation of programs, options, and content exactly to your expected needs. As an example, if you'll be using primarily Word and Excel for straight text documents and spreadsheets, installing hundreds of media files such as clip art and photos will consume a lot of hard drive space with data that may never be touched.
If you know for a fact that you'll never use Access, the Microsoft database application that's included in the higher-priced Office editions, you can choose not to install it, saving not only hard drive space. And although installation is usually a one-time process, also remember that the more options and extras you install, the longer the installation will take.
Select each application you want to install, check the Choose Advanced Customization Of Applications checkbox, and click Next.
Now you have complete control over the installation of each program, each option, media collections, and more. Simply click the arrow beside the element you wish to configure and make the choice that best suits your needs: |
Make your selection carefully on this screen.
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Run From My Computer—Installs that particular feature onto the hard drive for instant access.
Run All From My Computer—Installs that particular feature and all associated features listed within that branch of the option tree onto the hard drive for instant access.
Installed On First Use—This program or option will not be installed onto the hard drive during this installation. Instead, the first time you try to access something in Office 2003 that needs this feature or option, the program will initiate an automatic routine to install that feature. Remember the notes of caution issued above concerning this issue.
Not Available—This choice instructs the installation routine not to install this element now and not to make any preparation whatsoever for future installation. The feature, option, or content simply will not be available to you as you use your Office 2003 software.
- Once you've made all your installation choices, click Next to go to the Summary screen, where you'll be shown the list of programs you've chosen, along with the installation option chosen for each of those programs. The Summary screen will also show you how much space will be needed to install your chosen package, as well as the amount of space available on the target hard drive. If you see something in the Summary that you want to change, simply click the Back button until you get to the screen that will allow you to make the change. With the changes in place, work your way back through the screens until you reach the Summary screen again. When the screen accurately reflects your desired installation package, click Install and sit back and wait. Depending on the installation choices you made and the speed of your computer, the installation can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more.
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The entries within this window can be navigated in Explorer-esque fashion.
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Once the routine finishes, you'll be presented with one final screen. This screen contains two options: You can choose Check The Web For Updates And Additional Downloads or Delete Installation Files. We recommend checking the first option and not the second. Should you need to make changes to or repair your Office 2003 installation in the future, having the installation files in storage on your hard drive will make the task far easier.
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Once you click Install, the process is off to the races and out of your control.
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Click Finish, and a Web browser will automatically launch and load the Microsoft Office Update site, where you can check for, download, and install any available updates for your Office 2003 software.
After installation is complete, the first time you run an Office 2003 program, you will be prompted to activate the software. It's important to understand that registration and activation are two different things. Registration is optional. Activation is a mandatory antipiracy element, and you can use Office 2003 programs without activation only for a limited number of days, after which the applications will run, but with very limited capability. (For example, you could only view documents in Word, not type or change anything.) If you're connected to the Internet, simply follow the instructions for online activation. It's quick and easy. If you're not connected, a number is provided for telephone activation.
If you upgrade computers, remember to uninstall Office 2003 from the old computer, to free up the activation credit for your new machine. 
by Jerry Hatchett |
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