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Microsoft Office 2013 Not Compatible With Windows XP, Vista
hypnosec writes "The newly unveiled productivity suite from Microsoft, Office 2013, won't be running on older operating systems like Windows XP and Vista it has been revealed. Office 2013 is said to be only compatible with PCs, laptops or tablets that are running on the latest version of Windows i.e. either Windows 7 or not yet released Windows 8. According to a systems requirements page for Microsoft for Office 2013 customer preview, the Office 2010 successor is only compatible with Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012. This was confirmed by a Microsoft spokesperson. Further the minimum requirements states that systems need to be equipped with at least a 1 GHz processor and should have 1 GB of RAM for 32-bit systems or 2 GB for 64-bit hardware. The minimum storage space that should be available is 3 GB along with a DirectX 10-compatible graphics card for users wanting hardware acceleration."
2 gig of RAM to type a letter
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beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
No, that is incorrect. They are perfectly capable.
They have no business reason to support people who do not purchase the new operating system.
ipv6 is my vpn
I can see why they'd drop support for XP, being that it's 11 years old now and that it's been succeeded by 3 versions now? But Vista? Really? Vista and 7 are very, very similar. They even back ported some of the 7 stuff to Vista around the time 7 was released with the "platform update". This is a marketing reason, not a technical reason
A home user running xp doesn't care about office 2013, and a business user on XP would reasonably move to 7 before getting office 2013 anyway.
XP is approaching the end of life where you can say it 'works'. It has compatibility and security issues that will no longer get fixed, and as time goes on new software will rely on libraries and so on that just don't exist on XP (see the hardware acceleration on DX10 class hardware mentioned).
With linux these sorts of problems are simply solved by a free upgrade (which, like windows, comes with features you may not want and so on), but with MS they charge you money for it, but the core problem would still be there, you just don't get an excuse of 'oh but I can't afford Ubuntu 12 when I still have 10' the way you do with XP and 7.
That something 'works' is a moving target in the IT sector. Does it support flash? How about the latest version? Will it support HTML5 and whatever video encoding scheme your browser wants? Will anyone even want a browser without hardware acceleration in a year or two? Is there a new UI API that just doesn't exist on an old version? Etc. The world plods along, and eventually it's not practical to make your software for an old operating system, as relatively important companies start making that transition your computer will 'work' less and less, in the same way IE6 works but doesn't.
I'm not sure it's there yet, but XP clinging to life could start to cause issues as security and compatibility move past what is reasonably possible on XP.
IMO its not the users, its the developers. Because of a retarded default setup, XP allowed developers to ship code assuming the user will always run as root and Vista broke that. Developers are now forced to reduce the number of - Add Admin priveledges to this process token - UAC prompts which can be jarring to the end user experience. For that alone I think novice users should be moved away from XP as soon as possible. In the enterprise I think its not so bad since the software used can be carefully chosen and you can run XP as non-admin.
> (see the hardware acceleration on DX10 class hardware mentioned).
Nope, that is entirely a ploy by Microsoft to mov people off WinXP. There is no technical reason why you can't get DX11 effects on WinXP provided your video hardware supports it. How do I know this? well OpenGL will give you DX11 effects no matter what the operating system. But Microsoft had to find ways to move users clinging on to XP (and bring in more revenue even though users won't be doing much different with Win7 that they aren't doing with WinXP) and holding back newer versions of DirectX/Direct3D was one way of milking the cow. Unfortunately the vast bulk of Windows users don't know about that and have been played (again) by Microsoft (although, most won't care I suppose, but that is up to them - the point is that Microsoft gave them no choice for their own cashflow reasons, not technical ones as you allude to).
Once MS decided to abandon support for XP with newer DirectX versions I'm sure I gave them more technical flexibility in what they could do - but it was not technical limitations in XP that stop you having 'DirectX 11' style effects - like I said, OpenGL can do the same effects on Windows XP and many more operating systems - since OpenGL is no longer subject to the whims of any single company (unlike Microsoft and DirectX). Hence, I'm developing my modern jet combat simulator in OpenGL with GLSL shaders - just as the X-Plane developer famously did too: http://techhaze.com/2010/03/interview-with-x-plane-creator-austin-meyer/ read how chosing OpenGL over DirectX resulted in business opportunities that personally made him $US 3.5 million dollars in a few months when his OpenGL code was very easily ported to the iPad/iPhone unlike DirectX apps that are stuck on the Windows desktop [which is the whole reason Microsoft tricked developers into building workflows using DirectX, since MS knew this would make it hard for game developers to leave, which makes it hard for gamers to leave - it is all about the 'lock-in'].
I worked at a school in the nt4 days.
I have adored UAC since it's release, because of exactly that reason - it forces developers to develop properly.
The amount of times I was on the phone to software companies who were flabbergasted that I wasn't running their software (and didn't see it as an acceptable solution to their software failures) as administrator.
It was just discraseful.
Thank you Microsoft for releasing vista. - Now mod me to hell for saying that!