OFFXP: System Requirements for Microsoft Office XP

This page describes the system requirements for the following three editions of Office XP:

• Standard
• Professional
• Professional with FrontPage

NOTE : This article does not cover qualifying products for the Office XP upgrade products. For upgrade information, please browse to the following site:

MORE INFORMATION

CPU

According to Microsoft, Office XP requires a Pentium processor with a clock speed of at least 133 megahertz (MHz). I would personally recommend at least 350 MHz.

Operating System

Office runs on the following operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows XP
• Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me)
• Microsoft Windows 2000
• Microsoft Windows 98

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6.0a (SP6a)

Memory

Windows XP:

128 megabytes (MB) of RAM is required for the operating system, plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each program running simultaneously.

Windows 98:

24 MB of RAM is required for the operating system, plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each program running simultaneously.

Windows Me and Windows NT 4.0:

32 MB of RAM is required for the operating system, plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each program running simultaneously.

Windows 2000 Professional:

64 MB of RAM is required for the operating system, plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for each program running simultaneously.

Available Hard Disk Space

The following table shows the default amount of space required for each edition of Office.

   Edition                 Approximate Disk Space Requirements* 

   ------------------------------------------------------------

   Standard                 191 MB      

   Professional            230 MB

   Professional            276 MB

   with FrontPage   

*Approximately 115 MB will be installed on the same drive where the operating system is installed.

The amount of disk space varies, depending on multiple factors. For a more detailed description of the amount of disk space required to install Office, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q290372 OFFXP: Disk Space Requirements for Microsoft Office

Disk Drives

A CD-ROM drive (or compatible DVD-ROM drive) is required to install Office.

Monitor

A Super VGA monitor with at least 800x600 resolution and 256 colors is required.

Pointing Device

A Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse, or compatible pointing device is required.

Other Requirements

Some Office features have additional requirements.

Multimedia

A multimedia computer is required for sound and other multimedia effects. A hardware accelerated video card or MMX processor provides improved graphical rendering performance.

Speech Recognition

Speech recognition requires the following:

• A Pentium II 400 MHz or higher processor
• 128 MB or more of RAM
• A close-talk microphone
• An audio output device
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later

I would ALWAYS recommend that you train your speech recognition at least 5 times to ensure that a large sample of your speech patterns are learned by Office software. Microsoft recommends at least 3 times but when we trained in class for Office XP they stressed at least 5 times

E-Mail and Internet

Microsoft Exchange, Internet SMTP/POP3, IMAP4, or MAPI-compliant messaging software is required for e-mail. Microsoft Exchange Server is required for certain advanced collaboration functionality in Microsoft Outlook. Some Internet functionality may require Internet access via a 14.4 KBps or greater modem or a high-speed connection, and payment of a separate fee to a service provider; local charges may apply.

Handwriting

A graphics tablet is recommended for handwriting input features.