News about Microsoft Office Support of SoftGrid Outlined at Virtualization Deployment Summit

Today at the Virtualization Deployment Summit, we announced expanded support for virtualizing Microsoft Office System 2003 and 2007 using both Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 and SoftGrid Application Virtualization 4.2.  This is great news for IT professionals and information workers, because it means that any version of Microsoft Office that is still supported by Microsoft can be virtualized! Running multiple versions of Office side-by-side on the same device eases Office deployment, which keeps costs down, reduces downtime and enables mobile workers to get the same level of rich Office functionality they expect while at their desks. Additionally, delivering Office applications through Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 and SoftGrid Application Virtualization 4.2  allows companies to enable hot-desking scenarios for information workers. This means that workers can now get the rich user experience they need to get their job done from any PC in the organization, and IT professionals can more easily migrate users or replace PCs as needed.

Keep in mind that Office 2007 was not designed for virtualization, so there are some features that will not work in a virtualized environment. Find out more about best practices and limitations at www.windowsvista.com/optimizeddesktop.

Depending on the usage scenario, we recommend that customers install Office 2007 on their client machines to ensure access to all of the product features, and use virtualization for older versions of Office in cases where they need to run multiple versions of office at the same time.  Details can be found at www.microsoft.com/virtualization.

To find out more Windows Client news coming out of the Virtualization Deployment Summit, visit the Windows Vista Team Blog.

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Enjoy!

J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer