Office365 for Home is a cloud productivity tool. It utilizes Microsoft Office and SkyDrive to give access to documents in the cloud.
The Installation Process
1. StepGo to Microsoft Office Website and click on “Try 1 month FREE” button.
2. StepClick on “Start your free month”
3. StepYou will be redirected to log into msn using a personal hotmail/msn/live email address or that of an organisation. If you do not have an idea one can be created on the fly.
4. StepThe user is required to provide some mode of payment for the service, however they will not be charged until after the first free month has expired. Therein after $9.99 will automatically be deducted from the previously selected payment mode.
5. StepSelect payment option, PayPal or credit card is accepted. Click SAVE.
6. StepRead through the “Subscription details” and ensure that the package you have selected is the free for a month home version. Click PURCHASE.
7. StepThe next screen will advise that the purchase is complete. Then the user will be redirected to the main page of office.microsoft.com/myaccount.
8. StepOn the main page, if not logged in, you will be prompted to log in. From this window the user will be show how many Office365 available installs are left. You are allowed 5 installs on both Windows and Mac devices.
9. StepFrom the same home screen/main page on office.microsoft.com you can view your payment detail and renew date information. The option to cancel your subscription is also visible.
10. StepTo get started using Microsoft’s cloud productivity tool, under AVAILABLE INSTALLS, select “Office for Windows” or “Office for Mac” depending on the device you are installing on, then click INSTALL. A file, Setup.X86.en-US_O365HomePremRetail_a01570d8-e55b-4284-ba17-215b1516a588_TX_PR_.exe, will be downloaded to your computer.
11.Navigate to the download folder on your desktop/mac and double click the executeable to install. You will be prompted by the User Access Control (UAC) to accept the installation. Click YES.
12.Allow the installation to get to 100%
13.Click on NEXT when the “Welcome to your new Office” splash screen appears.
14.You will be prompted to choose if you want to send information to make Office365 better, select either the option to allow information sharing or not.
15.The user will be prompted to sign in with their hotmail/live/msn email account. Then click NEXT.
16.Click NEXT at the MEET SKYDRIVE screen.
17.The user will be guided through configuring the office space. They can change the workspace look and feel to their own liking.
18.There is a guided tour that the user can opt to take or choose NO THANKS to skip.
19.Office On Demand, once accepted will allow the user to access their documents straight from office.microsoft.com website. You can create files online and access them from your desktop at any given time.
20.The user will be prompted to launch the Microsoft Office suite from the cloud to make use of “Office On Demand”, once accepted you can start creating files on your local hard drive and store them in the cloud or access them anywhere.
Conclusion
As usual Microsoft presents a bundle that is very perfectly packaged however requires going through a number of version upgrades to work through the bugs. Personally, I would wait for version 3 or 4 and the many hotfixes and patch updates that will come with it. Initially my configuration would not allow me to upload my docs, I was constantly presented with “Login failure, retry” before I could successfully access my lone test file from an independent device. The wait time (yes I know we’re accessing from the cloud) was too much in my estimation and this had nothing to do with having bandwidth issues, etc. All in all, I give the product 5 out of 10, 5 because Microsoft has finally delivered a clean interface without a lot of distractions, they lost 5 points because of the start up issues I had to face.