Microsoft Office 97

Microsoft Office 97
Developer	Microsoft
Type	Office suite
Release date	November 19, 1996
Discontinued	February 28, 2002
Latest release version	Service Release 2B (SR-2B) October 7, 1999
Operating system	Windows NT 3.51 SP5 or later
Licensing	Proprietary commercial software
Website	technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc760254.aspx
Preceded by	Microsoft Office 95 (1995)
Succeeded by	Microsoft Office 2000 (1999)

Microsoft Office 97 (version 8.0) is the fifth major release of Microsoft Office for Windows, released by Microsoft on November 19, 1996. It succeeded Microsoft Office 95 and was replaced by Microsoft Office 2000 in 1999. A Mac OS equivalent, Microsoft Office 98 Macintosh Edition, was released on January 6, 1998. Microsoft Office 97 became a major milestone release which includes hundreds of new features and improvements over its predecessor.

The suite is officially compatible with Windows NT 3.51 SP5, Windows 95 or later. Outlook, FrontPage, and Publisher 98 require Windows NT 4.0. It is not officially supported on Windows XP or later versions of Windows. It is the last version of Microsoft Office to support Windows NT 3.51 SP5 and Windows NT 4.0 RTM–SP2; as the following version, Microsoft Office 2000 only supports Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0 SP3 or later.

Two Service Releases (SR-1 and SR-2) were released for Office 97; SR-2 solved the year 2000 problem in Office 97.

Mainstream hotfix support for Office 97 ended on August 31, 2001, while extended hotfix support ended on February 28, 2002. Assisted support options and security updates for Office 97 ended on January 16, 2004.

Features

Office 97 introduced "Command Bars," a paradigm in which menus and toolbars were made more similar in capability and visual design. It also featured natural language systems and sophisticated grammar checking.

Microsoft Office 97 is the first version of Office to feature the Office Assistant, a feature designed to assist users by the way of an interactive animated character, which interfaced with the Office help content. The default assistant was "Clippit", nicknamed "Clippy", a paperclip. The Office Assistant feature was also included in its successor, Office 2000, as well as in Office XP (hidden by default) and 2003 (not installed by default), before being removed entirely in Office 2007.

Office 97 is also the first Microsoft product to include product activation, albeit limited to the Brazilian editions of Office 97 Small Business Edition and Publisher.

Two Office 97 applications featured easter eggs: Microsoft Word 97 contained a hidden pinball game and Microsoft Excel contained a hidden flight simulator.

Though not incorporated into the icon, the packaging cover art emphasized the fifth "puzzle piece", Microsoft Access.

Editions

Office 97 was released in five editions. They are as follows:

Office programs	Standard Edition	Professional Edition	Small Business Edition	Small Business Edition 2.0	Developer Edition
Word 97	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Excel 97	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Outlook 97	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PowerPoint 97	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Access 97	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Bookshelf Basics	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Developer Tools and SDK	No	No	No	No	Yes
Publisher 97	No	No	Yes	No	No
Small Business Financial Manager 97	No	No	Yes	No	No
Automap Streets Plus 1997	No	No	Yes	No	No
Publisher 98	No	No	No	Yes	No
Small Business Financial Manager 98	No	No	No	Yes	No
Direct Mail Manager	No	No	No	Yes	No
Expedia Streets 98	No	No	No	Yes	No

Contemporary programs

Some additional programs were branded as a member of the Office 97 family, but were not included in any of the editions:

• Microsoft FrontPage 97
• Microsoft FrontPage 98
• Microsoft Project 98
• Microsoft Team Manager 97

External links

• Microsoft Office 97 Standard Edition at Microsoft (archived 1998-01-20)
  • Microsoft Office 97 Professional Edition (archived 1998-01-20)
  • Microsoft Office 97 Small Business Edition (archived 1998-01-20)
• Microsoft Office 97 at Wikipedia