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Office 2010 RC released to testers

Tom Warren
04 February 2010 - 08:37
45 Comments
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Microsoft has released Office 2010 RC to technical beta participants today.

The software giant has made available the release Candidate Builds of Microsoft Office 2010 client (build 4734.1000) and server products (build 4730.1010). Earlier this week Microsoft officials confirmed to Neowin that it had made the build available to TAP testers.

Early Release Candidate builds began leaking to the web in January this year as Microsoft was preparing for the RC release to Technology Adoption Program (TAP) testers. Russian site Wzor recently confirmed that the release candidate build (14.0.4734.1000) is an RTM escrow build that Microsoft is testing internally. Screenshots of the build leaked last week and a download was made available on torrent sites early this week.

In an email, the Office team thanked testers, "as a valued Technical Beta participant, you play an important role in preparing Office 2010 for the rest of the world! We thank you for your continued participation, feedback, and hard work."

In January Microsoft announced Office 2010 pricing. The professional edition will retail for $499 boxed.  Office 2010 will be released in at least five different flavours, including a free version that includes Microsoft Word and Excel, but comes with limited functionality and includes advertisements. The editions of Office 2010 will include Starter, Home and Student, Home and Business, Professional and Professional Academic.

Microsoft is expected to hit the RTM milestone in the coming months with a general availability date of June.

Thanks to Tom for the news tip

Image Credits: Wzor

Comments (45)

  1. MrChuang - 04 February 2010 - 08:56

    First build which leaked was the best build IMO. When you press File in word the menu which came up was not a boring white it was a nice blue and the application just had a nicer feel to it.

    Screen:
    http://www.redmondpie.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/office2.png

    Edit (MrChuang, 04 February 2010 - 08:57):

  2. +MrPink - 04 February 2010 - 09:59

    MrChuang said,
    First build which leaked was the best build IMO. When you press File in word the menu which came up was not a boring white it was a nice blue and the application just had a nicer feel to it.

    Screen:
    http://www.redmondpie.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/office2.png


    Yep, the original tech. preview was way better!

  3. MrChuang - 04 February 2010 - 10:19

    .woot! said,

    Yep, the original tech. preview was way better!

    Thankyou. I'm so glad someone else agrees with me, everyone else seems to like the duller white menus and all.

  4. Tamilboy86 - 04 February 2010 - 10:46

    MrChuang said,
    First build which leaked was the best build IMO. When you press File in word the menu which came up was not a boring white it was a nice blue and the application just had a nicer feel to it.

    Screen:
    http://www.redmondpie.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/office2.png

    The new one looks clean and much better than the one from your screenshot which is ugly :)

  5. MrChuang - 04 February 2010 - 11:33

    Tamilboy86 said,

    The new one looks clean and much better than the one from your screenshot which is ugly :)

    I suppose your opinion might be different but if they cleaned it up a little with proper icons that one in the screenshot is perfect!

  6. rm20010 - 04 February 2010 - 12:43

    MrChuang said,
    First build which leaked was the best build IMO. When you press File in word the menu which came up was not a boring white it was a nice blue and the application just had a nicer feel to it.

    Screen:
    http://www.redmondpie.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/office2.png

    The gradient was a bit overkill. The way it is right now is nice and subtle.

  7. iamwhoiam - 04 February 2010 - 09:15

    A good majority of the bugs from earlier test releases are still present in this. I have no idea why Microsoft even asks for input on bugs when they really don't listen for the most part.

    Edit (iamwhoiam, 04 February 2010 - 09:17):

  8. ccoltmanm - 04 February 2010 - 15:35

    iamwhoiam said,
    A good majority of the bugs from earlier test releases are still present in this. I have no idea why Microsoft even asks for input on bugs when they really don't listen for the most part.

    Like what for instance? Not doubting you, i just want to try and recreate them.

  9. +MR_Candyman - 05 February 2010 - 13:38

    ccoltmanm said,

    Like what for instance? Not doubting you, i just want to try and recreate them.


    Don't know what problems he has, but the only one I've had so far was in the last spreadhseet I made. I had 3 sheets using the exact same macro (it was just doing a bunch of if statements and some math). It worked perfectly on 2 sheets and only worked for half the output values on the third, the rest were unchanged. I spent a good hour trying to track down what I did wrong, to just save it, shut excel down, then open it back up and reload the spreadsheet. It worked flawlessly that time.

    That was definitely a bug, but admittedly a pretty weird one.

  10. nodii - 04 February 2010 - 09:16

    Interesting. Might have to give it a try!

  11. nodii - 04 February 2010 - 09:18

    A shame Outlook won't be included in the free version. It would make the ideal combination.

  12. null_ - 04 February 2010 - 09:31

    nodii said,
    A shame Outlook won't be included in the free version. It would make the ideal combination.

    There wouldn't be much point in making an ad-supported version of Outlook available when Windows Live Mail is already available as part of Windows Live Essentials.

  13. +Northgrove - 04 February 2010 - 10:17

    Kristan K said,

    There wouldn't be much point in making an ad-supported version of Outlook available when Windows Live Mail is already available as part of Windows Live Essentials.
    Are you saying the feature set of Outlook is comparable to that of Live Mail?

  14. Lamp Post - 04 February 2010 - 10:32

    Northgrove said,
    Are you saying the feature set of Outlook is comparable to that of Live Mail?

    The free versions do not have full functionality. So, I'd guess a limited version of Outlook wouldn't be much more useful than Windows Live Mail.

  15. GP007 - 04 February 2010 - 11:40

    Northgrove said,
    Are you saying the feature set of Outlook is comparable to that of Live Mail?

    He's not saying that, what he means is why make a ad supported free version of outlook when they have a free, non-ad mail client already? Maybe they don't share all the features but the key ones you want in a free client are in live mail already.

  16. pikablu0530 - 04 February 2010 - 13:20

    Northgrove said,
    Are you saying the feature set of Outlook is comparable to that of Live Mail?

    Yes probably in Windows Live Mail Wave 4. It's definitely better than an ad-supported "Outlook Starter".

  17. vaximily - 04 February 2010 - 22:04

    GP007 said,
    He's not saying that, what he means is why make a ad supported free version of outlook when they have a free, non-ad mail client already? Maybe they don't share all the features but the key ones you want in a free client are in live mail already.

    Does Live Mail connect to Exchange Server? I'd love to move away from this horribly heavy Outlook client, but nothing else I've tried works very well with Exchange.

  18. PGHammer - 05 February 2010 - 18:00

    vaximily said,

    Does Live Mail connect to Exchange Server? I'd love to move away from this horribly heavy Outlook client, but nothing else I've tried works very well with Exchange.

    I have used Outlook as my preferred mail client since Outlook 97, and I am a home user. Why? No mail client (not even Evolution or KMail, which come the closest outside of Windows/OS X) has as much firepower for taming a mailbox (POP3 or IMAP) that Outlook brings to bear. Outlook has one failing - it has issues with nonstandard proprietary back-ends (such as GroupWise and Notes); however, that isn't Outlook's (or even Microsoft's) fault.

    In fact, back in my pre-broadband days (pre-2000), my biggest use for Outlook was sending faxes, not e-mail.

  19. LPC - 04 February 2010 - 09:26

    And what's the betting that Dynamics CRM 4 still wont work in the 64 bit one :(.

  20. eangulus - 04 February 2010 - 10:00

    Still not available from my Technet.

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