Excuse me sir, does Vista still come with PowerPoint and Excel?

It's a pet peeve of so many geeks...  For years now people have crossed the names between Office and Windows by saying things like "I think I'm running Windows 97" or "umm, I believe I am running Office 2000", and then come to find out they are running Windows 2000 and don't have Office installed at all!

So, of course we are now on Windows Vista and Office 2007.  My task at Microsoft is to help schools and universities nationwide to learn about Vista; what it is, how to deploy it, how to manage it, how to secure it, how to support it, etc.  Recently I was planning a presentation with one of our account managers.  She mentioned, "Can you also talk to them about Office?".  I gave my usual reply that I am happy to give an overview of how to build the Office file to automate the install and how to build it in to an image using BDD but generally speaking that is a subject that one of our Office specialists should cover because they work very hard at delivering that information.

She then made a good point, that our customers don't always see it that way.  Many organizations that are planning or starting a deployment of new desktops consider Vista and Office one big upgrade.   If you are refreshing the OS why not also take that opportunity to deliver the new version of Office?  You absolutely do not have to install them together.  Office 2007 runs on XP and Office 2003 can run on Vista.  On the other hand, it makes a lot of sense to build a deployment strategy that includes both.

As a result, from now on I am going to at least briefly discuss how to install Office as part of an image or automatically after the image has been installed.  If you are planning an upgrade, this is something to think about.