Microsoft Office Click-to-Run is a new software delivery mechanism. Office Click-to-Run is optimized for home users on broadband connections (at least 1Mbps).
Click-to-Run is not a new Microsoft Office “product”. Instead, it is a new way of delivering and updating the programs with which you are already familiar. Click-to-Run is available for both the Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 and Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010 editions. It has full language support and will work on both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems, although only the 32-bit version of Office is actually run on both platforms.
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More about Click-to-Run
The following are some reasons to use Click-to-Run.
- It is fast. You can stream Microsoft Office and be running your Office programs in as little as 90 seconds (under five minutes on average), or about 10% of the time it takes to install the MSI-based Microsoft Office edition. The programs still run on your computer and use your computer’s resources, instead of “running in the cloud”.
- With Click-to-Run, it is easier to always be running the latest and most secure version of Office. Click-to-Run gets the latest version right away instead of having to get updates immediately, which can take another 60 minutes over the Internet. Click-to-Run also gets updated automatically over time, with no need to download or install updates. Click-to-Run seamlessly updates itself in the background.
- It is low impact and co-exists with other applications on your computer. Programs installed with Click-to-Run are virtualized, so they don’t conflict with other applications.
- The programs installed with Click-to-Run take up about half the disk space of the MSI-based programs.
- The programs installed with Click-to-Run repair more completely.
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How does Click-to-Run work?
Programs delivered via Click-to-Run execute in a virtual application environment on your computer. This means that the programs have private copies of their files and settings, and that any changes they make are captured in the virtual environment. The effect is they don’t end up modifying any other applications installed on your computer. With few exceptions, only user data actually passes through the virtual environment to your computer. You might notice that you have a virtual Q: drive on your computer. The virtual Q: drive is the virtual file system used by Office.
Click-to-Run programs also support streaming. Think of this in the same way that you think about streaming video. You get to watch the first part of the video before the entire file downloads. With Click-to-Run, you can start using your Office programs before the entire edition or program has been downloaded, enabling you to get to work much faster. While a program from Click-to-Run is running, the rest of the programs are being downloaded in the background. The initial installation process is very different than what you might be used to. The experience of getting Office Click-to-Run is more like downloading a large Web control than doing a traditional Office installation.
If you try to use a feature or program that is not yet downloaded, Click-to-Run retrieves the required functionality from the Internet immediately. In this case, the program might pause briefly, and you might see an experience similar to the following:
You can see the current progress of the program download by running the Click-to-Run Application Manager in Control Panel.
After fully downloaded, the program is cached locally, and you are free to disconnect from the Internet and continue using the Office programs.
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Click-to-Run in Office 2010 and beyond…
You see that the Office Home and Business 2010 edition is available to download by using the Click-to-Run technology. This option is optimized for high bandwidth connections. Click-to-Run delivery is available for a wider range of Office products. People who download an Office 2010 product by using Click-to-Run also have access to the MSI-based version of Microsoft Office, as well as the native 64-bit version if those better suit your needs.
You might notice that a handful of things behave differently when using a Click-to-Run version of the Office 2010 programs. For instance, there is a Click-to-Run specific destination in the Microsoft Office Backstage for each program in the product. This section gives details about the status of applied updates and links to more information about Click-to-Run.
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