Office 2010 Beta Expires at the End of October

Users still running the first public development milestone of the latest iteration of the Office productivity suite will need to upgrade by the end of this month.

Office 2010 Beta is set to expire on October 31st, 2010, less than two weeks from now, but almost an entire year since the Build was released to early adopters for testing.

Build 14.0.4536.1000 went live in the second half of November 2009, as Microsoft was closing the Technical Preview stage of the Office 2010 testing process, and was advancing to the Beta phase.

Just as the Windows 7 Beta earlier that year, Office 2010 Beta Build 14.0.4536.1000 was a public release, designed to attract as many users as possible.

In exchange for feedback, the software giant allowed testers to run Office 2010 Beta for almost a year.

But now time is running out on the release, and users need to make the jump to the RTM Build of Office 2010, as the Beta is going to expire soon.

“For those of you still running the beta version of Microsoft Office 2010, remember that it’ll expire on 31 October,” revealed Microsoft’s Rachel Collier.

“If you want to install the released version of Office 2010, you will have to uninstall the beta software first.

“If you didn't get to fully test-drive all of the Office 2010 programs you wanted, you can still take extra time to evaluate the Office 2010 products before committing to a purchase.”

Microsoft is offering free trial versions of three Office 2010 RTM for download to all users, allowing them to test drive the SKUs before they decide on making a purchase.

Office 2010 hit RTM in April 2010, and commercial availability two months later, in June.

Office Home and Business 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.

Office Home and Student 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.

Office Professional 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.