Microsoft is going trick-or-treating this Halloween, but there won’t be any spooky houses or smashed pumpkins.
Instead, all of those who beta tested Office 2010 before it was released, and who continued using the beta after the commercial release of the application suite last spring, take note.
On Sunday, Oct. 31, if users still running the beta copy who haven’t replaced it with a paid version will see their Office 2010 license expire, Microsoft said this week.
“With so many folks out there using the Office 2010 beta, this is our gentle reminder that the beta is set to expire on Halloween,” Microsoft spokesperson Michael Oldenburg said in a post to the Office Blogon Monday.
After Oct. 31, the beta will cease to function and users will have to buy a commercial copy or go back to an earlier version of Office. It’s unknown how many of the people who downloaded the beta some 9 million times are still running the beta.
Microsoft had warned testers along the way that the free beta trial would run out on Halloween 2010.
“As the instructions and the licensing agreement first explained when you downloaded the Office 2010 beta, you’ll have to uninstall the beta software from your computer before you can use the released version of Office 2010,” Oldenburg added.
Office 2010 began shipping to volume customersin mid-May, and to consumers in mid-June.
A check at Amazon.com found Office 2010 Home and Business listed at $279.99 but discounted to $214, while Office 2010 Professionalwas listed at $499.99, but marked down to $408.99.
For those who just aren’t ready to make a commitment, Microsoft also has 60-day trial versions of the commercial versions that are available for download. However, they expire after 60 days.
Microsoft seems to be taking a less jarring approach to its Office 2010 trials than it did with the betas of Windows 7. Beta copies of Windows 7 expiredon Aug. 1, 2009, but not before they first began randomly shutting down every two hours for a month prior to expiration — until they finally shut down for good.
Stuart J. Johnston is a contributing writer at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @stuartj1000.
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020
Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 05, 2020
The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
August 14, 2020
Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.
Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on Datamation and our other data and technology-focused platforms.
Advertise with Us
Property of TechnologyAdvice.
© 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this
site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives
compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products
appear on this site including, for example, the order in which
they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies
or all types of products available in the marketplace.