Instant use: deliver office in the 21st Century

Introduction to "instant use"

If you are keen to try out the latest and most outstanding software (or you prefer to read the Office 2010 engineering blog ...), The troubles you encounter when trying new software for the first time will surely be fresh in your memory. I'm Paul Barr, and office 2010 is the project manager in charge of the team. We built this function as needed. NextArticleThe technology described in the new method announcement for trial and purchase of Microsoft Office 2010 is further discussed.

Deliver rich services such as office over the InternetProgramThis situation has not changed much in the past 10 years. Of course, we have self-extracting executable files, securely Signed files, and download managers, but none of these can solve the biggest problems we encounter when downloading and installing large applications:

1. The speed is too slow. Office contains many outstanding features and content, but it is also very large, it takes a long time to download, install and run all the content. No matter in which context the user executes the current task, the slow speed will hinder the user from obtaining the product.
2. Applications often expire. How many times have you been prompted to update the software immediately after downloading it?
3. Installing a new version sometimes means you need to uninstall the old version, or you may interrupt other software installed in the system.

What is "instant use "?

"Click to use" is a brand new software delivery mechanism built by the Office product team. It is based on the core virtualization and stream technology of the Microsoft app-V team at Cambridge University of Massachusetts. "Instant use" is optimized for home users who use broadband connections (at least 1 Mbps). Investing in this technology has three key advantages:

1. Fast. Home users can run the office in streaming mode. It takes at least 90 seconds to run the application (less than 5 minutes on average), or 10% of the previous time. The product still uses PC resources to run locally, rather than "running on the cloud ".
2. With "click-and-use", you can easily achieve the goal of always running the latest and safest office version. Users can immediately obtain the latest BIT data (instead of the old BIT data that needs to be repaired immediately, it takes another 60 minutes to download the old BIT data over the Internet ). "Click-and-use" users can also perform automatic updates without the need to download or install patches. The product can be seamlessly updated in the background.
3. It has little impact and can coexist with other software in the computer. "Instant use" is a virtualization product, so it will not conflict with other software. For example, you can run Office 2007 for your work plan and evaluate the trial version of Office 2010. This solves the main problems that plague users.

The "Click-to-use" Product occupies about half of the disk space of a Common product, and the repair is complete. It also has all product files and dedicated copies of registration, therefore, other software installed on the PC will not be damaged.

"Click to use" is not a new office "product, but a new way to deliver and update familiar products.Office Home & Student 2010AndOffice Home and Business 2010All products can adopt the "point-to-point" delivery method. "Instant use" provides complete language support, it can be used in both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems (although only 32-bit office is actually running on these two platforms ).

Working principle of "instant use"

Products delivered through "click-and-use" run in a virtual application environment on the local operating system. This means that such products have private copies of their files and settings, and the system will capture all the changes they make in the virtual environment. Therefore, these products do not modify any other software installed in the system. There are almost no exceptions when running them, but in fact only user data is transmitted to the local system through the virtual environment. "Click to use" users may notice that there is a virtual Q: Drive in the PC, which is a virtual file system for office.

The "click-and-use" product also supports stream technology, which is like a stream video, because you can watch the first part of the video before downloading the entire file. With "click-and-use", users can start to use office programs before downloading a complete suite or product, allowing them to work more quickly. When you run an application, the system downloads other products from the background. The initial installation process is different from the user's usual process. The experience of getting "click-and-use" office is different from that of traditional office installations, but more like downloading large Web controls:

If you try to use a feature or application that has not been downloaded, click to use it to immediately retrieve the required feature from the Internet. In this case, the application may be suspended for a short time, and the user may see the following prompt:

By starting "Click-to-run application manager" in Windows "Control Panel", you can view the download progress of the current product.

After the download is complete, the product will be cached locally. You can disconnect the Internet and continue to use its office products:

"Click to use" in office 2010 beta and later versions "...

Users will see that they can use the "click-and-use" technology to downloadOffice Home and Business 2010 BetaProduct. This option is optimized for high-bandwidth connections (low-bandwidth users should downloadOffice professional 2010 Beta). After Office 2010 is released, you can get more office products by means of "click-and-use" delivery. Users who use the "click-and-use" delivery method to download the Office 2010 product can also access the "normal" self-decompressed version and the 64-bit version of the Local Machine (if these versions are more suitable for user needs ).

Home users may notice that when using the "click-and-use" version of Office 2010, there are only a few changes in the behavior of the content. For example, in the backstage view of each application in the corresponding product, there is a "click-and-use" specific location. This section describes the detailed status information of application updates, and provides links to the detailed information about "click to use:

When using the "click-and-use" product, you may also notice that the behavior of some external programs or other integration points with office clients is different or damaged. Most of these functions are correct. All macros, automated documents, and cross-Office applications can run normally. However, sometimes, changes to the Office product group are required to update the integrated solution (for example, to generate a 64-bit version of the application ). In some cases, an external program may encounter problems when searching for "click-and-use" office products on a computer or interacting with office products running in a virtual environment.

We hope to limit these problems to a certain extent. We will provide more information to inform users and developers who want to expand the office about how to solve these problems. If you are a developer or an external program that you think is compatible with office 2010, you can obtain the Professional Edition office 2010 beta.

Conclusion...

As you can see in other articles on this blog, the Office 2010 rich client provides users with a set of new features and functions. "Click-and-use" will allow many users to experience these benefits in a simpler, faster, and safer way. We are happy to be the leader in delivering next-generation software over the Internet. We look forward to your feedback.