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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."

27 of 711 comments (clear)

  1. Lol by sentientbeing · · Score: 5, Insightful

    2 gig of RAM to type a letter

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    1. Re:Lol by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Funny

      I wonder what the requirements for Notepad will be.

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    2. Re:Lol by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah, I just had to make sure here on that one. Open office... 27.3MB of ram in use with my largest technical letter open, which is 173 pages long. Okay there MS, you guys are insane.

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    3. Re:Lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      256k to write a letter, 1.99gb to display that letter with the Metro interface.

    4. Re:Lol by multiben · · Score: 5, Insightful

      For simple documents, it's good. But for serious stuff it is slow, flaky and unreliable. It has excellent integration between other MS stuff like excel, project etc. I have seriously tried to use OpenOffice as a replacement and I'm sorry to say that it just doesn't quite cut it yet.

    5. Re:Lol by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Funny

      Somewhere between 640k and hell.

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    6. Re:Lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you're writing a document that complex, you probably shouldn't be using MS-office or libreoffice or any other WYSIWYG editor.

    7. Re:Lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      LaTex or something that allows you to separate the content from the presentation. It's something that tends to make things a lot easier if you decide later that you want different formatting or if you need a copy for two different audiences, but where the audiences can't for one reason or another use the same formatting. Like say if you're sending one copy to somebody that always uses a mobile phone.

    8. Re:Lol by DeathFromSomewhere · · Score: 5, Funny

      A neckbear!? Sweet jesus tell me how I can get one of those.

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    9. Re:Lol by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 5, Informative

      The question though in this case isn't "what does it take to run office" so much as "what does it take to run any application in Windows 7 or Windows 8?"

      Those system specs are nearly identical to Windows 7's system recommendations.

      Essentially all the recommended system specs are saying is. "Your computer needs to run Windows 7, after that Office will be fine with whatever." If your OS is crapping out without any apps running (min OS specs) then you won't be running office smoothly either.

    10. Re:Lol by LordLimecat · · Score: 5, Funny

      Same as always. Take the amount of data being worked with, multiply it by two, and then lock up the entire machine.

    11. Re:Lol by marcello_dl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So, to recap the thread:
      1 openoffice (i'd say libreoffice) does office work well
      2 but not for complex documents
      3 but for complex document office is not good either, you would be better off with latex
      4 latex? we need simpler stuff
      right, so GOTO 1

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  2. Re:Let me get this straight by statusbar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, that is incorrect. They are perfectly capable.

    They have no business reason to support people who do not purchase the new operating system.

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  3. I can see why they'd drop support for XP, but... by NervousNerd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

  4. LibreOffice will work on older Windows installs by Qubit · · Score: 5, Informative

    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:

    - Microsoft Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4 or higher), XP, Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8;
    - Pentium-compatible PC (Pentium III, Athlon or more-recent system recommended);
    - 256 Mb RAM (512 Mb RAM recommended);

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  5. Re:DirectX? by Tough+Love · · Score: 5, Funny

    Precisely why would Microsoft Office need DirectX? a 3D spreadsheet maybe? Maybe a really awesome animated book report?

    Clippy3D.

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  6. Re:Not Compatible With Windows XP, Vista by gmuslera · · Score: 5, Funny

    The box says "Windows 7 or better", so it should run in Ubuntu and MacOSX

  7. Re:Good by HappyEngineer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Good. XP needs to be wiped out.

    Why? Do you just hate old software that works or did it run over your dog?

  8. Re:Better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  9. Re:Good by Sir_Sri · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  10. Re:Good by 0ld_d0g · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  11. Re:Good by SplashMyBandit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > (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'].

  12. Re:Good by xQx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

  13. Re:VIM by spauldo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ah, you want emacs then.

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  14. Re:Wait a second! by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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  15. Re:Good by justforgetme · · Score: 5, Funny

    That wasn't windows 95 it was the next iteration of kde ;-)

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  16. Re:Word Processing at 1GB of RAM by Higgs+Bosun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.