Office 15 Preview for Business - what a mess

On March 16th - MS announced the release of a new Office 16 preview - called Preview for Business.  So like any techie - I registered at the MS Connect site - downloaded - did a quick peruse of the installation instructions and tried to install. 

What a mess....

The install not only wiped out my existing Office 15 install - but then failed to install itself leaving me with without any Office at all and was a part of the cause for me to have to completely re-install Windows 10 build 9926 on my Dell Venue 8 Pro.

So I am partially at fault for this.  I didn't read the instructions deep enough to understand that this release was targeted toward Office365 Business License E customers and not stand alone Office users like myself.   So I was a little too quick to pull the trigger on this preview.

But I also blame MS for helping to make this such a mess.  I have previously installed Office 16 preview apps from the MS Store and they easily ran right along side my existing Office 15 install no problem.   So I made the incorrect assumption that this would be the same with this preview build.   And boy was I wrong.

MS did take an interesting approach with the deployment - the download was not an ISO or a self executable like had been used with previous Office releases but rather a group of XML files and command files that pulled the version of office down from Office365.  The whole download was only 3Mb and covered many languages and version and also included Project & Visio. 

But this was a preview - So why did MS not recognize that A) I already had Office 15 installed and either warn me or B) simply install Office 16 in a different directory set and not feel it had to replace all of my existing Office installation.  Add to this the fact that it left some of Office 15 and then failed to properly install Office 16 is just bad.  I expected more from MS. 

Lesson learned...









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