The Office 2010 Starter edition won’t continue for Office 2013 but not for the reason Microsoft says.
The Office 2010 Starter Edition, included with some new computers, won’t be returning for Office 2013.
According to Microsoft the Starter Edition isn’t compatible with Windows 8 so they can’t have an Office 2013 Starter Edition. That might be plausible except that Redmond has already released a patch (see below) to allow the ‘Click to Run’ technology in the Starter Edition to run with Windows 8.
It’s an old Microsoft trick. They make up a technology related excuse to hide what’s really a commercial decision.
The Windows 8 compatibility statement is just a ruse to hide the real reason – money. The reality is that the Starter Edition didn’t improve the conversion rates of people buying Office 2010. At least they weren’t buying directly from Microsoft instead of a retailer where Microsoft has to share revenue.
The Starter Edition was a limited function version of Word 2010 and Excel 2010 yet Microsoft now believes it gave away too much. Many users were more than content with the features in the Starter Edition and didn’t see any need to pay for more features they didn’t need.
Starter Edition also had ‘Office to Go’ the only legal way to put Office onto a USB memory stick and run it from another computer with no installation required. Savvy users took our advice in Office 2010: the real startup guide and kept a copy of the Starter Edition ‘to go’ to use even if they installed a full Office later.
Since the direct conversion from Starter Edition to full Office via Microsoft directly wasn’t good enough, the Starter Edition had to go.
Office 2010 Starter Edition and Windows 8
Office 2010 Starter Edition relies on a related ‘Click To Run’ system and it’s that system which conflicts with Windows 8. It’s also the excuse Microsoft is giving for not having an Office 2013 version of Starter Edition.
However you will be able to use Office 2010 Starter Edition on Windows 8 machines as long as you apply this patch.
The patch updates Click to Run with various fixes. While the KB articles doesn’t mention Windows 8 compatibility, Microsoft admits that the patch covers the next Windows. We know that because the Office 2010 page for PC makers says in the fine-print “Office Starter 2010 users who upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 will not encounter compatibility issues if they install the patch from Microsoft Knowledge Base article 2553141.“
Of course Microsoft doesn’t really want you to use the free Office 2010 Starter Edition on Windows 8 – they’d much prefer people buy Office. So that provide a compatibility patch but bury the details so most people won’t find it.
KB 2553141 is a ‘fast publish’ article which “may be revised at any time without notice”. However the article has remained unchanged for 4 months now so we can only hope that the patch is stable.
For continued compatibility of ‘Office 2010 to go’ download and apply the patch mentioned above. Then recreate your ‘To Go’ version of Office.
Details of the Starter Edition including step-by-step on creating ‘Office 2010 To Go’ are in Office 2010: the real startup guide commencing on page 72.
