First go ahead and grab a free copy of Office 2010 beta which will expire in October, 2010. Assuming you have Office 2007 installed, we will discuss two points in this post:
Upgrade To Office 2010 Without Overwriting Office 2007
Completely Upgrade To Office 2010
Before we begin, please note that all Office apps can co-exist with each other except Outlook and SharePoint Workspace(formerly known as Office Groove 2007). Both these applications cannot co-exist with previous versions so you will need to select one version of the program to have installed on your computer. This is mentioned in Microsoft Office FAQ.
Upgrade To Office 2010 Without Overwriting Office 2007
You might want to upgrade to Office 2010 without overwriting Office 2007 if you are giving beta version a shot. Who knows you may or may not like Office 2010? If you do not like Office 2010, you can simply uninstall it and continue using Office 2007.
Note: If you want to permanently upgrade to Office 2010, skip this part and head straight to ‘Completely Upgrade To Office 2010’.
After you have entered the serial key and accepted the terms, click Customize on the main window.
In the next step select ‘Keep all previous versions’ and go to Installation Options tab.
Now select the Microsoft Office 2010 Applications that you want to install and hit Install Now button.
Completely Upgrade To Office 2010
This step is so easy that even a 5 yr old can figure it out, but I will mention it anyway. When you see the main installation screen, hit the Upgrade button and you are done. This will remove all previous versions of Office 2007 and replace them with Office 2010.
Note: When previous versions of Office 2007 is removed the settings are not deleted. In other words, when you upgrade to Office 2010 all settings and files remain intact.
Bonus Tip: If you want to keep Word 2007 along with Word 2010 and replace all other Office 2007 applications with that of Office 2010 then you need to click Customize and select ‘Remove only the following applications’, finally uncheck Microsoft Office Word and hit Install Now.
You can also go to Installation Options tab and select which applications you want to install.
Sadly, users who are using Office 2003 or previous versions will have to perform a clean install of Office 2010. You can always backup your data and import them to Outlook 2010, so that all settings and data are not lost.
Grab you FREE copy here:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx
