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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
Nobody complains that the new Chevy Volt isn't compatible with their set of tools they bought just last year to work on cars.
Nobody complains that the HE dishwasher they bought wont except regular dishwashing crystals.
Nobody complains that the new bike they bought can't use all the old tires they have from the last bike.
Nobody complains that the HD TV they bought doesn't have RCA cable inputs.
Why is that? Face it people, progress happens and sometimes you've got to let go of the old and invest in the new.
Luckily there is eBay and Craigslist where you can sell your old stuff to someone who can't afford the new shiny yet. Give them a break and sell it to them.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I'd suggest that people run a more modern operating system than Win XP, but LibreOffice will even run on Windows 2000!
LibreOffice system requirements:
coding is life
Makes you wonder if there isn't a strategy in there somewhere.
Windows 7: Corporate
Windows 8: Beta testing new stuff on Home users
Windows 9: Corporate
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Precisely why would Microsoft Office need DirectX? a 3D spreadsheet maybe? Maybe a really awesome animated book report?
Clippy3D.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Exactly what progress have they made in the office application field that justifies this argument?
The box says "Windows 7 or better", so it should run in Ubuntu and MacOSX
Good. XP needs to be wiped out.
Why? Do you just hate old software that works or did it run over your dog?
Cow Cube
I saw a Windows tablet at Staples the other day when I was picking up my Nexus 7. It's about twice as thick as any other tablet on display. I wonder why that is.
My guess: thermal insulation... you see, it's bad when the components overheat because of the strain Office 2013 put on them, but is worse when the customers suffer burns because of it.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
I, on the other hand, will be using only spotted owl feather quills and writing with ink made from the blood of baby pandas. It is more expensive, but the medium is, as you know, the message.
Old software has bits that rust. They oxidize into AOL subscriptions. You don't want that.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
They need the extra thickness for the patent licenses.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Gosh darn it all, I purchased a USB device but my 486 DX2 66 doesn't have a USB port, so I purchased a USB card so I could use my USB device and wouldn't you know it the USB card is PCI and I only have ISA slots. Then I puchased one of these new fangled LCD displays but my Trident video card couldn't push 1440x900 so I purchased a NVidia graphics card and wouldn't you know it the graphics card is PCIe and I don't even have an AGP slot! Then I purchased the new Office 2013 and put in my CD-ROM and wouldn't you know that Office 2013 is on a DVD! Sumabitch.
Many,
Pivot Tables to name one. One click charting. HUGE spreadsheets.
I am not even an MS apologist, but even I can see that.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
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'].
It is stupid to relate just what the program needs. That doesn't tell an average user anything. If a program said "Requires 10MB of RAM, 50MB optimal," people would be confused, and might try it on ultra low spec systems. It should spec in terms of what the whole system, with OS and all, should have to run well.
For example a number of modern games recommend 4GB of RAM. Now they are all 32-bit apps and anyone who knows about the Windows memory model knows this means they won't be designed to use more than 2GB of RAM themselves under normal circumstances. So why the recommendation then? Well they are counting on using most of that 2GB, so they want to make sure there's plenty left over for the OS, virus scanner, IM, Steam, and other things people might have running. The program itself may only need 2GB allocated to it to run ideally, but it won't get 2GB of memory unless the system has a good bit more.
So makes sense to me you do things like Office in the same way. Also it makes sense to not be stingy on recommendations. Something I always hated back in the day was games that were under on their recommendations. They'd say something like "386 20MHz 1MB minimum, 486 25MHz 2MB recommended, 486 33MHz 2MB optimal." Now to me "optimal" means "runs really well cranked up" and "minimum" means "minimum to run reasonable." However what they really mean was "minimum to run the program at all, you can't really play at this level," and optimal meant "Runs reasonably well with this but you'll need a good bit more to crank it up. Said game would need like a 486 50MHz and 4MB to really run properly.
Well we shouldn't do that. It should be spec'd in terms of a reasonable usable minimum, and a recommended that is actually good performance. Well, for 64-bit 7 I'd say 2GB is a realistic minimum. With that, you can run the OS and an app or two reasonably well.
It's also not very demanding. 16GB of RAM is all of $90 these days. I have 16GB in my laptop just because why not? It bumped the cost hardly at all over 8GB.
I run Office Libre on Linux.
LibreOffice !
And for a lot of us who are power users or make a living using word-processors and spreadsheets, $200 every 3-5 years is a solid investment in quality 'tools'.
And, no, just because you open/save the format doesn't mean it has the same functionality ...
Nobody complains that the new Chevy Volt isn't compatible with their set of tools they bought just last year to work on cars.
Actually they would complain bitterly and use plenty of expletives. I haven't heard of any incompatibilities.
Nobody complains that the HE dishwasher they bought wont except regular dishwashing crystals.
Probably because HS detergents cost the same as regular and it's an expendable resource. If it cost them a few hundred extra dollars, they'd complain loudly.
Nobody complains that the new bike they bought can't use all the old tires they have from the last bike.
Probably because the new bike came with tires. Of course, they usually CAN use the same ones if it's the same type of bike. Nobody wants to use 10 speed racing tires off road.
Nobody complains that the HD TV they bought doesn't have RCA cable inputs.
Mine has RCA inputs. It added HDMI and VGA. What's to complain about?
Luckily there is eBay and Craigslist where you can sell your old stuff to someone who can't afford the new shiny yet. Give them a break and sell it to them.
MS claims that Windows is non-transferable. You guessed it, people have complained.
The stepwise nature of the move-along is the issue here. Once you subscribe to the Office leash you are doomed to be led by it. Here boy. Heel. Sit. That's a good boy.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
> $US 3.5 million dollars
3.5 million US dollars dollars
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!
Ah, you want emacs then.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
If its like the one I saw they are using some lame ass CPUs in them which means they need extra room to get the heat out through pipes and fans. why hasn't anybody put one of the AMD C or E series chips into a tablet? Those are nice chips, full 1080P video through HDMI thanks to the Radeon GPU and pretty low on battery suckage. I have one of the E350 netbooks and I get around 6 hours playing 720P and more if I'm just surfing and don't need bluetooth. It seems like it'd be perfect for a tablet and would let you run all your X86 programs, add a transformer style keyboard with extra battery and you'd have a tablet that turns into an all day laptop with full X86 compatibility, sounds sweet to me.
As for TFA...damn, can Ballmer and Sinofsky torpedo this company a little more? Why don't they just send a page to the XP and Vista users offering Libre Office or Google docs while they are at it? Between fracturing IE all to hell, followed by keeping many games on DX9 because they refused to backport to XP, to making sure all those Vista users (Yeah i know the number is dropping but there is still millions of them and they ARE supported until 2017 as far as EOL goes) won't buy their Office suite I swear MSFT couldn't be run any worse if the team leads were picked by Cook over at Apple. Its like watching the PHB at Dilbert just bumble a company straight into the ground.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
That wasn't windows 95 it was the next iteration of kde ;-)
-- no sig today
Did you just call Excel a "quality tool"?
It's a good spreadsheet. It's not a full blown database, it's not capable of processing TB of data from the LHC in real time, it's not a scientific textbook publishing package. It's a spreadsheet.
I would be interested in what other spreadsheets have to offer that Excel doesn't. The one in LibreOffice is very similar to Excel. I've used GnuCalc and others which are basically lite versions of Excel and perfectly adequate, but if Excel is not a "quality tool" what is?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
And (optionally I think) a DirectX 10 graphics card. I think that's even more implausible than the 1GB RAM. Did they port Office to WPF or something?
Yeahyeah I know, Direct 2D, fancy hardware accelerated text, etc. It's still kind of funny needing a GPU for documents.
My laptop and Windows installation is metric. Do I delete System25?
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
Word processor pages are rendered similar to a web browser. We now use graphics card acceleration for browsers. Why not for publishing software?