Top questions

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Q. What is the difference between Office and Office 365?
A.

Office is productivity software (including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and OneNote) that is installed on your desktop or laptop computer. Office 365 is an online subscription service that provides email, shared calendars, the ability to create and edit documents online, instant messaging, web conferencing, a public website for your business, and internal team sites—all accessible anywhere from nearly any device.

Customers with Office 2010 installed on their computer can quickly configure their software to work with Office 365. These users can easily retrieve, edit and save Office docs in the Office 365 cloud, co-author docs in real-time with others, quickly initiate PC-to-PC calls, instant messages and web conferences with others.

Office 365 is also compatible with Office 2007 and newer editions of Office and select Office 365 plans include Office Professional Plus.

Q. What is the cloud?
A.

The cloud is a friendly way of describing web-based computing services. Information storage, computation, and software are located and managed remotely on servers owned by Microsoft. Because this infrastructure is located online, you can access it virtually anywhere from a desktop, laptop, or mobile phone.

Q. How many users does Office 365 support?
A.

Office 365 is scalable and can support everyone from a one-person business to companies with tens of thousands of users. Office 365 for small businesses (Plan P1) is best for companies with up to 25 employees and can accommodate up to 50 users. Office 365 midsized business and enterprise plans (E1-4) and kiosk plans (K1-K2) fit organizations ranging in size from a single employee to 50,000-plus users. You can compare all the options here.

Q. Will Office 365 work with my copy of Office?
A.

Office 365 works with best with Office 2010 and Office 2011 for Mac. Office 365 also works with slightly limited functionality for Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac. If you have an earlier edition of Office, you will need to update to a newer version of Office in order to use Office 365.

Q. Where's my country? I do not see it in the dropdown list on the signup page.
A.

Office 365 is offered in a number of countries and languages. If your country is not visible, that means we have not currently launched a version of Office 365 for your market. We are continuing to launch Office 365 in new markets and will publicly announce when we launch Office 365 in any new market. Please note, if you are in Australia, visit Office 365 Australia.

Getting started

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Q. Where can I get Office 365 plan details?
A.

You can find details and a comparison of Office 365 plans here.

Q. What do I need to install when I sign up for Office 365?
A.

You don't need to install anything in order to use Office 365.

To easily connect your desktop version of Office 2010 and 2007 to Office 365, Microsoft provides Office 365 customers an installable piece of software—called Office desktop setup—at no charge.

Office desktop setup provides many benefits, including:

  • Automatically detecting necessary updates.

  • Installing updates and components upon approval or silently from a command line.

  • Automatically configuring Outlook and Microsoft Lync for use with Microsoft Office 365.

  • Uninstalling itself from the client computer after running.

You can find and install Office desktop setup in your Office 365 administration center.

If your plan includes a subscription to Office Professional Plus 2010, you will also be able to install that directly from the Office 365 administration center.

Q. Are there any minimum purchase requirements?
A.

You need to purchase only one Office 365 seat license.

Q. What if I already own a domain name?
A.

You can add the domain name you own to Office 365 to create both domain-based email addresses and a public-facing website. Find more domain-related answers here.

Q. Will my trial information be transferred to my Office 365 subscription?
A.

Yes. If you purchase an Office 365 subscription with the same number of user accounts you created by the end of your free trial, the information and configuration for these users' accounts will remain intact. Once your free trial expires, you won't be able to continue trialing Office 365. You will have an additional 30 days to purchase Office 365 before your account information is erased. Once your trial account information has been erased, it cannot be retrieved.

Compatibility and system requirements

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Q. What are the Office 365 system requirements?
A.

For PC users:
Minimum systems requires for Office 365 are the following on your PC: an XP operating system with SP3; Office 2007; and Internet Explorer 7. You can find full requirements here.

For Mac users:
Minimum system requirements for Office 365 are the following on your Mac: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard); Office 2008 for Mac & Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition; Safari 4 or above

Q. Will Office 365 work with my copy of Office?
A.

It depends on which version of Office you own. Office 365 works with best with Office 2010 and Office 2011 for Mac. Office 365 also works with slightly limited functionality for Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac. If you have an earlier edition of Office, you will need to update to a newer version of Office in order to use Office 365.

Website questions

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Q. What do I need to do to add a domain name?
A.

To add your organization’s custom domain to Office 365, you must have access to the DNS records for that domain. If you do not have access, you should contact the person at your company that manages the company domain account. Find more domain information.

Q. Is Office 365 replacing Microsoft Office Live Small Business?
A.

Yes, Office 365 is replacing Office Live Small Business (OLSB). Current OLSB customers will need to transition their websites to Office 365 or another provider by April 30, 2012 when OLSB discontinues. Customers who choose to move to Office 365 will get an exclusive six-month free trial of Office 365 for professionals and small business and Office Professional Plus. OLSB customers can use the self-transition guide to move their website, email, contacts, calendars, and any documents to Office 365 or they can get help from a Microsoft partner. Learn more.

Q. What happens to Business Productivity Online Suite?
A.

Office 365 replaces the Business Productivity Online Suite. Enterprise customers can contact a Microsoft sales representative or Microsoft Partner directly for purchase details, or get more information about volume licensing.

Existing Business Productivity Online Suite customers can transition during the 12 months following general availability of Office 365 in 2011. Check out our blog and the new Office 365 transition center for more information and ongoing guidance and discussion about the transition.

Support and pricing

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Q. Where can I see and compare prices?
A.

You can see and compare prices and plan details here.

Q. How do I switch between plans?
A.

To switch plans, you need to cancel your account and then sign up for the plan you want. You cannot migrate between a Plan P account and a Plan E account. In order to move between the two plans you would need to cancel your account and then sign up for a different one.

Q. How do I cancel my subscription?
A.

To cancel a subscription, please call Microsoft Online Services Support. To find the phone number and hours for billing support in your country - visit http://virtualchat.support.microsoft.com/client/default.aspx.

Q. How do I change my password?
A.

Go here to change your password.

Q. I will need extra help setting up Office 365? Who can help?
A.

Microsoft Partners are trained IT and development companies that can help you move to Office365 or develop custom solutions for your business. You can find a listing of all of our Microsoft Partners in Microsoft PinPoint.

Q. What VAT rate is charged?
A.

For VAT purposes, sales of BPOS/Office 365/Azure/Intune by MIOL are regarded as the supply of services from Ireland and the place of supply, e.g., where the VAT liability arises, depends on where the customer is located and the VAT status of the customer. Such sales are subject to the following VAT rules:

  • If the customer is located in Ireland and does not hold a VAT 13B exemption certificate, Irish VAT at the current rate of 23% will be applied to all invoices. VAT exempt Irish customers will be invoiced at 0% Irish VAT on receipt by MIOL of a valid customer VAT 13B Certificate.

  • If the customer is located outside Ireland but within the EU and is VAT registered, 0% Irish VAT will be applied under the reverse charge procedure but only on receipt of the customer’s valid local VAT number during the purchase process.

  • If the customer is located outside Ireland but within the EU and is not VAT registered or is VAT registered but does not provide MIOL with a valid VAT number during the purchase process, Irish VAT at the current rate of 23% will be applied.

  • If the customer is located outside the EU (except Switzerland), 0% Irish VAT will be applied.

  • If the customer is located in Switzerland or Liechtenstein, Swiss VAT at the current rate of 8% will be applied.

Q. No VAT number is provided during the purchase process?
A.

VAT will be charged as set out above and will appear on each invoice as appropriate.

Education, non-profit and non-business customers

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Q. Do you have an Office 365 plan for educators?
A.

We do not currently have an Office 365 plan for educational institutions. Educational customers who want cloud productivity solutions from Microsoft should use Live@edu services.

Education customers can trial Office 365 for enterprises (Plan E3) for a similar evaluation experience as Office 365 for education. Please note: this trial will not convert into an education plan.

Q. What is happening to Live@edu?
A.

Live@edu is being transitioned into Office 365 for education. Microsoft will also continue to offer Live@edu in markets where Office 365 for education is not available.

Office 365 for education will be available in the following countries/regions: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, and United States.

Q. Is there a home/family option for Office 365?
A.

Today there is no home consumer version of Office 365 available. We encourage you to try consumer cloud services like Microsoft Office Web Apps, Windows Live SkyDrive and Hotmail.

Q. Do you have non-profit pricing?
A.

We do not have non-profit pricing for organizations.

International availability

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Q. Where and in what languages is Office 365 available?
A.

Office 365 is offered in the following languages: English, Br Portuguese, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Romanian, and Russian.

Q. Will Microsoft be offering international pricing on Office 365?
A.

Yes, Office 365 is currently offered in 38 countries and 13 currencies and we are assessing the feasibility of offering more in the future.