Office 365 suite exits preview on the Microsoft Store

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
published

Now anyone using Windows 10 can download the Office 365 suite of apps via the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft initially launched its Office 365 suite in the Microsoft Store (then called the Windows Store) several months ago as a way for Windows 10 S users to get their hands on the desktop versions of Word, PowerPoint, and other apps, packaged for distribution with the desktop bridge. Despite later opening up to a small group of Insiders, the apps remained in preview and unavailable to most. That has now changed, as Microsoft has dropped the preview tag and the apps are now available to download for any Windows 10 user.

As first spotted by Neowin, the suite no longer carries the preview tag. So long as you have an active Office 365 subscription, you can now download the bulk of the suite from the Microsoft Store. Among the apps available are Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, Publisher, and the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) version of OneNote.

As Microsoft clarified when it initially launched the suite into preview, these are bridged versions of the 32-bit Office desktop apps. As for the Office Mobile apps, which were previously the only ones available from the Microsoft Store, Microsoft has repositioned them for smartphones and tablets with screen sizes under 10.1 inches.

If you want to try installing the apps from the Microsoft Store, you'll have to jump through a couple of hoops. The first is that you'll need to uninstall your current desktop apps. Direct links to the individual apps seem to direct you to a website, according to Neowin. You'll have to search the store directly for Office 365 Home, Personal, or Solo and install the apps from there.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the Editor in Chief for Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. Got a hot tip? Send it to daniel.thorp-lancaster@futurenet.com.

33 Comments
  • Question... what are the people in the picture looking at?
  • Your mom? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
  • If you were to open the page in the store, you would see that they are looking at the screen of a computer.
  • They're looking at your prosperous future with Office 365. Duh
  • I'm guessing we still need to go to the website, though, if we're doing Insider builds of Office 365?
  • Nope! Open any of the apps, go to File > Account (it's "Office Account" in Outlook, just "Account" in the rest) and there should be a button "Office Insider" on the right. Once you've picked a new Insider level you should be able to check for updates immediately in the Store app if the currently deployed Insider build is greater than your installed version.
  • Not seeing them in the Store though??
  • Got to search for them so I was told, it is not on the front screen, which I thought was strange.  
  • I did a search but they aren't coming up in results... The win32 version don't need to be uninstalled to be able to find them right?
  • removed win32 version and still no joy in the Store.
  • i just done a search and it comes up with both personal and home and this is without a MS account and I am in the UK.     
  • strange stuff... I just visited my Region & Language settings in W10... Changed nothing but on reopening the Store, it said it needed to be refreshed to make the language changes active... After the refresh, Office popped up in search results.
  • It could be US only as Microsoft is known to do that for most of their products.
    .
    I'm in Canada and still waiting for Films & TV section and Books section to appear on the MSFT Store.
  • It's not US only. I'm in Hungary, and just wrote Office in the search bar of the Store. And both personal and home came up :D But clicking on buy actually opens the MS store website... And yeah, the Store is half English, half Hungarian again :D
  • Question: does this mean Microsoft will get around to actually fixing the idiocy on this page? As someone who has used office on Wp8 to WM10 and a daily user of office on WM10 I can categorically say... it is absolutely retarded to say there is no office app support for their own ecosystem when clearly there is lol. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Capabilities-of-built-in-Mobile-Device-Management-for-Office-365-a1da44e5-7475-4992-be91-9ccec25905b0
  • nobody wants those stripped down mobile version to use on a device larger than 7" screen
  • About freaking time!!! Now i can try getting rid of this heavy, legacy crap on my old PC and get a modern install function.
  • Actually UWP .appx installer was based on Office technology so you won't make a giant leap.
  • Source?
  • This was revealed during a Build 2015 or 2016 conference when they announced the desktop bridge. It was built on AppV which is the technology that Microsoft uses for the ClickOnce Office installs.
  • So you are saying that it will still invade the registry like old programs do?
  • No. Office 2013 onwards (that use ClickOnce installs as opposed to MSI ones) do not touch the registry as-is. This allows for the easy installs and uninstalls/repairs. They're built on AppV which virtualizes an app container so the apps get their own "fake" registry and don't affect the real one at all. They read the real one and write to the fake one (and read the modified values from the fake one subsequently). The desktop bridge was "forked" from AppV and uses the same technology. I'm not sure if Microsoft used the desktop bridge for converting these apps since they were already AppV. Either way, your registry is fine.
  • Desktop version is accessible to other users on my machine. When i first installed these store versions a few months ago that was no longer the case... A problem for my family use scenario. Anyone know the status of this now?
  • To share all your Microsoft Store purchases you just have to add them to your family. Goto the accounts in windows settings, from the family and other people menu, click add a family member. They'll join your family group and be able to share all your apps.
  • Clicking install redirects you to the office account page and runs a Win32 installer. Call me crazy, but this doesn't seem like prime time centennial
  • You have to uninstall the old ones first. Otherwise, it will do what you described.
  • The old ones were never on my 2in1, but it still does the same here. Could it be because of the UWP Office Mobile apps? :D
  • (actually read the article)
  • What are the PRACTICAL differences in the app and the legacy programs I have installed now?
  • Automatic updates through the Store, I guess? And one less updater client program running is always a good thing :D
  • Not a huge difference to me.  I don't think it's worth my while on this computer.  But,  new ones I purchase going forward I will use the store versions moving forward. 
  • Interesting..
  • Would be great if I can install individual apps, I've home subscription and only use Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.