Office 2010 beta to expire on Halloween
Launched almost a year ago, the beta edition of Microsoft Office 2010 will expire on October 31, at which point any installations of the software will stop working.
Those of you still running the beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 have only three more weeks to use the software.
Today's Microsoft Office blog broke the news that the Office 2010 beta will expire on Sunday, October 31, meaning that all installations of the software will stop working the night of Halloween.
Launched almost a year ago, the Office 2010 beta has proved very successful, according to Microsoft's figures, triggering 9 million downloads, more than six times the number seen by the Office 2007 beta.
People who want to install the released version of Office 2010 will have to uninstall the beta software first. Microsoft is asking consumers who plan to buy the paid edition to download it, instead of ordering it in the box, as a way to help the environment. Office 2010 is available from a variety of online vendors, including Microsoft itself.
The software comes in three versions for the consumer market: Home and Student 2010 ($149), Office Home and Business 2010 ($279), and Professional 2010 ($499). Office Home and Student includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Office Home and Business adds Outlook, while Professional also throws in Access and Publisher.
Anyone who still wants to try before you buy can download a 60-day fully functional trial version of any of the three Office editions.