Microsoft Office XP Resource Kit

Microsoft Office ranks among the most pedestrian of software suites--it's in a high percentage of the world's cubicles, for sure. But there's more to Microsoft's productivity suite than what the user sees, and Office XP adds, in the form of activation-based licensing, a whole new level of intrigue to what's always been a deployment and maintenance challenge. Microsoft Office XP Resource Kit shows how to manage Office XP effectively and efficiently, emphasizing the suite's capacity for centralized management. Like all members of the Microsoft Resource Kit series, this one includes a CD-ROM containing utility software and searchable documentation.

Administrators will appreciate the coverage of best practices in this book. For example, the authors advise you to use a totally clean computer as a platform for creating an image of the Office installation you want to deploy network-wide, and warn you against starting applications on that machine so as to avoid creating any user-preferences settings. Information on Registry settings also is outstanding--readers will find documentation of keys and values here that doesn't appear in any other printed volume. The utility software's pretty cool, too: Supplementary file converters, an Outlook security configurer, and Answer Wizard Builder (a tool with which you can create help documents specific to your organization) are among the goodies. --David Wall

Topics covered: Microsoft Office XP, explained for the benefit of people who will be installing, upgrading, customizing, and managing it across an organizational network. Installation, user management, localization, and messaging are among the kit's areas of emphasis.