Well nobody told me that the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta was available! I downloaded the technical preview for Office 2010 in August and since then I’ve been using it every day. The only thing out of the ordinary I’d noticed with the technical preview was that it was very slow to open existing documents.

Anyway, in case you’ve missed the announcement too, the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta is now available for FREE download and it looks like anyone can lay their hands on it (unlike the technical preview, for which you had to put your name down and wait for an invitation). You’ll need to register with Microsoft before you can download it.

The size of the download is similar to that of the technical preview (632 Mb) and it took me maybe 5 minutes to download it. They give you your product key on the site, which you type in when installing Office.

The unusual thing about my new installation of Word 2010 is that in the title bar it still says (Technical Preview). However, it’s evident that this is a new version. Backstage View, for instance is lacking the saturated colours of the original technical preview. I’ve not had a chance to explore in any great detail so there may be other obvious changes.

Tags | beta