Office 2010: What you need to know about 64-bit vs. 32-bit versions

I picked up an interesting tidbit this evening about the 64-bit and 32-bit versions of Office 2010 (which by the way announced RTM ‘status’ today – congrats to the product teams!):  Functionality between the two bit-level versions is NOT the same. 

By default, I would expect the 64-bit version of Office 2010 to be the latest and greatest.  It IS the latest, but it’s only the greatest if you have some specific needs and don’t need some of the features that DON’T work – features that many people will miss. 

This article gets into the details you need:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee681792(office.14).aspx

Specifically take a look at the ‘Advantages’ and ‘Disadvantages’ sections. 

Some highlights: 

  • As you would expect, the 64-bit version allows use of additional memory, which translates into larger Excel 2010 workbooks and big Project 2010 projects.
  • As you (at least I) wouldn’t expect – some features like the Edit in Datasheet view DON’T work with Office 64-bit installed.  The details and reasoning can be found in the article but they’re related to ActiveX controls and COM add-ins… 

So, get to know the details before you purchase or plan to deploy Office 2010. 

One comment

  1. I am following the recommendations of the ms-office developers installing the 64bit version only if you have work with very large excel spreadsheet, word documents, etc that need the extra memory.

    I have never seen a file that big so no big worry, but with alot of the column/row and other limitations going away that may change.

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