Office 2007 Language Pack Sales Discontinued as of July 2011

Customers looking to buy Office 2007 Language Packs online will have a very hard time finding any.

This because Microsoft has discontinued the sales of Office 2007 language packs through the retail channel as of mid-2011.

A Microsoft representative working on the Office Language Interface Pack (LIP) team confirmed that Office 2007 customers can no longer get Language Packs:

“Apologies for the bad news but I have just been reliably informed that Office 2007 language packs are no longer available to buy online unfortunately. Microsoft no longer offers Office 2007 Language packs for retail purchase as of July 2011.”

In order to continue using Language Packs with their productivity suite, users will need to make the jump to Office 2010, the software giant revealed.

“If you are an Office 2007/2003 user and you wish to use a language pack you will need to purchase/upgrade to the Office 2010 version (either Office Home and Student, Office Home and Business or Office Professional) in your language and then purchase an Office 2010 language pack to install over your version of Office 2010,” the company said.

Customers can continue buying Office 2010 Language Packs from a range of retailers, including ecommerce sites. According to the Redmond company, no less than 37 languages are covered by the Office 2010 Language Packs.

It’s important to stress that language packs for the productivity suite are not backwards compatible. “Please note Office 2010 language packs will not work with other versions of Office (XP,2003, 2007 etc.),” the Microsoft representative added.

A temporary solution that might work for Office 2007 customers involves the installation of an Office Language Interface Pack (LIP). LIPs continue to be available as free downloads from Microsoft, not only for Office 2010, but also for Office 2007 and Office 2003.

Microsoft is currently preparing to release Service Pack 3 for Office 2007. The company indicated that Office 2007 SP3 RTM will become available for download by the end of this week.