Upgrading Microsoft Office 2010 Starter Edition
Don Bradbury has a point or two to make about this ostensibly simple process, plus a further, free additional upgrade to offer.
As we saw with the process of upgrading the Windows 7 operating system to a higher, more functional grade, upgrading the Office 2010 Starter package - which Microsoft currently includes with OEM Windows 7 installations for free - is also ostensibly easy. However, we hit temporary buffers, partly of our own making, as we shall explain.
Again as with the OS upgrade, in order to unlock the features of your chosen specification of Office 2010 you need an appropriate Registration Key. If you get the upgrade DVD, you'll have that key ready to hand, but the upgrade process via the DVD doesn't, in our experience, make it quite that simple.
If you pop the Office disk into your DVD drive and run the Setup.exe file, as you might think reasonable, you could find yourself with both the Starter version plus the upgrade version on your hard drive, while what you really wanted was an over-write of Starter with the upgrade version. The former was, at least for us, the interim outcome. Read on.
After the 'upgrade' as described, we noticed for a time that Word 2010, for example, recognised files we had created under the Starter version and asked us to open them using it, as opposed to the Professional installation we had just completed, as we thought.
It seemed that Office 2010 upgrade's Setup.exe wasn't smart enough to take a look at the hard drive to see if a lower version of Office 2010 was already installed - in our case Starter - and ask if we wanted a separate install or an upgrade. In Windows' list of installed applications we could, for a few days, see both versions of Microsoft Office 2010, ie Starter and Professional.
During this period we were asked to enter our upgrade Registration Key a total of - as we recall - three times. Frustratingly, but obediently, we did. Thereafter, and following some disk thrashing, the upgrade finally stuck and we no longer had separate installations of Starter and Pro, and we no longer saw differentiation between old and new files that we had created in Word.
So the penny appeared to have finally dropped, and Office 2010 Professional was now our only installed copy of Microsoft Office. Office Starter had been, at last, automatically uninstalled, and we no longer saw prompts to tell us to open our older files with the Starter version of Office. The full functionality of Office 2010 Pro was available for use.
Back to our story.
Options
The primary options that were first on offer during our setup process did not include Office 2010 Starter upgrade. In this menu you could opt for adding or removing features (applications), repairing the installation, removing options, or entering the Product Key. The latter, we thought, should have offered the Upgrade option, but it didn't. Well, not immediately anyway. In fact, as we say, our upgrade Reg Key was asked for at least three times during the brief life of Office Professional on our Windows 7 Ultimate test PC. In short, either the first activation didn't stick for some reason, or the product couldn't make up its mind whether activation was complete or not. Well, not a major problem, just a little disconcerting.
We were then asked for your Office options to complete the installation. You don't have to install all of the applications to begin with of course, or ever. If you just need Word and Excel, say, then you indicate that in the extensive list of setup options. When you have the options set as you require, let Setup loose and within a short time the process will be complete and you'll have access to the full glory of Microsoft Office 2010 Professional (or alternative) to play with.
Well, 'play with' may be the operative phrase because previous users of Microsoft Office may not be familiar with the 'Ribbon' system of offering menu options in Office 2010. It does take some getting used to, though the range of options for working with any Office application are certainly extensive. We particularly like and value the way you can hover the mouse pointer over many options and immediately see the effect it will have on your document's layout.
If, on the other hand, you find that your productivity falls because the ribbon interface takes so much getting used to and learning, we have discovered a neat little application that can pop into Office 2010's toolbar a new option named - you guessed it - Menu.
Get Classic Menu And Toolbars In Office 2010 & 2007
If you simply cannot get used to the new Ribbon interface introduced with Microsoft Office 2007 and then added to in Office 2010, the free program UBitMenu can help you significantly in the upgrade process. Once installed, you'll have added the classic menus and toolbar buttons as present up to version 2003.
UBitMenu is a free little app for personal use, and is not exactly expensive for use at work. Having the ability to add the classic menus and toolbars gives you that delicate mixture of knowing exactly where to find all the original features again while being able to enjoy the new functionality as well.
If you're planning on eventually doing the transition to the Ribbon interface, this is a neat intermediate solution. No functionality is changed; the only thing it does is add another tab to the Ribbon that has the classic menus and toolbars that you are probably already used to.
You can download UBitMenu from http://snipurl.com/104jjr
Using the UBitMenu add-on is a feature that many Office users are adopting with relish. You get all the functionality of Office 2010 plus the easy access (and minimal initial learning curve) that the add-on gives. This writer likes it and recommends it.
In conclusion
Microsoft's Office 2010 Starter is an amazingly functional product for a freebie, but the upgrade is well worthwhile if you can make use of the added features, but as we point out, do it preferably via Windows Anytime Upgrade.
Our tip about the UBitMenu add-on offers those folks who are familiar with the older menu system a chance to take their time familiarising themselves with Office 2010's Ribbon interface by using the tried and trusted older menu system. Minimal interference, full familiarity, immediate access, you couldn't ask for much more.
