DPS Upgrade to Office XP
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)
What is Office XP?
Office XP is productivity software used in a majority of schools and businesses to perform such tasks as word processing, budget management, data keeping, web page and print publishing. The main programs that are in the Office family that will be installed on all of the computers include; Word, Excel, Access, Publisher, PowerPoint and FrontPage.
How will the upgrade affect me and my computer in my classroom?
It is very important that any files that are on your computer’s C:\ drive are copied either onto the H:\ drive or on to a floppy before the upgrade. The computers will be updated using a process called ghosting, which essentially restores the computer to the original state before the new software is applied. User files can then be copied back onto the computer after the upgrade is finished. Anything installed on or created by the user that is on the computer’s hard drive will need to be re-installed after the upgrade.
What is so different about Office XP?
Actually surprisingly little if you don’t choose to explore. A few enhancements in the way that the menus behave and how you open documents are the obvious changes. If you are the adventurous type you will find that there are a ton of very useful tools that make Office XP worth the bother, such as Voice Recognition (which allows you to speak to your computer while it types down what you say), up to 20 clipboard saves, auto-recovery that is superior to previous versions, templates are integrated in a much easier to use way, and my personal favorite change…the demise of Clippy the annoying cartoon helper (he is much easier to get rid of in Office XP). For a complete list of added features, see:
I teach a computer class, do I need to consider new text books?
Possibly…most of the features described in your current Office texts will exist in Office XP, but if you need support for the newer features new texts may be desirable.
Why do we have to upgrade, I just learned to use Office ‘97?
There are substantial changes in Office XP that make it technologically superior to Office ’97 (which is actually two versions behind current). The new licensing policy instituted by Microsoft provides more frequent upgrades, allowing us to stay more current. It is desirable in a school to provide to the extent possible access to the most current software possible in order to prepare our students the best we can. Learning new technology skills regularly is healthy in a school environment.
Will I be able to use all of my Office ’97 documents in Office XP?
Yes, but you may run into situations where you will need to do some conversion. This is a pretty painless process that a wizard will walk you through as needed. In some circumstances if you convert a document to the newest type you will not be able to open in on a computer running the old version (say at home). This is more likely to be true with Access and Publisher than Word and Excel.
Will I be able to install the new Office software on my at home computer?
Our new license agreement does allow educational staff to install and use Office XP on one at home computer. The stipulation is that you will need to sign an acceptable use form from Microsoft stating that you will only use the software for educational documents. The agreements and the software disks will be available for checkout from the media centers starting in the fall.
Will clipart work better in Office XP?
We’re not certain at this point. XP clipart is heavily dependent upon the graphics on the web. The interface is totally redesigned from previous versions of clipart. All of the previous clipart will be available; however our initial tests do not indicate that it will be any easier to incorporate new clips than in previous versions.
Where do I go to find out more information about Office XP?
Some introductory information about Office XP is on the DPS website. Check out: