Updated: July 13, 2020 (July 10, 2006)

Office 2007 Web Preview, Delay

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

A new Web site enables users to “test drive” Office 2007 applications in a browser, without installing the applications locally. Organizations might use the site as a safer, quicker way to show users the new applications and user interfaces of the suite. However, the site still requires installation of some software on the client machine, which could hamper its use.

The test drive site currently provides browser-based tutorials with live access to applications for the Office suite, as well as Visio, the SharePoint Designer Web design tool (successor to FrontPage), and the Project Professional client. The applications run on a hosted server and use the Windows Terminal Services and Citrix Metaframe technologies to display the applications’ user interfaces in a browser.

The site requires installation of a Citrix Metaframe ActiveX control in the browser, which can be done over the Web, but only if the user has administrative privileges. Organizations that have Metaframe and have previously deployed the control to user desktops can bypass this step. The test drive site is hosted by Runaware, which offers software test and demonstration services over the Web.

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