Jim,

>I don't normally download ANY betas any more, but this one has me intrigued for a couple of reasons:
>1) Huge changes long touted (I want a heads-up on them);
>2) Office 2000 and Office XP both give me grief frequently and I'd like to see if 2003 is better.

Yes, the new "Office System" (yet another new marketing term) has some very interesting new things in it, especially the infusion of XML much more extensively in the plumbing of the products.

InfoPath (once known as XDocs) is intriguing, although it will require a good bit of 'splaining (that's what magazines are for, right?). :-) Also, a real sleeper in this is the combo of SharePoint Services, which enable document management, collaboration, and many more features over the web, and SharePoint Portal Server, which can set up web portals made up of Web Parts, including your own custom ones built with .NET. What many people don't realize is that SharePoint Services can stand alone apart from the Portal Server.

We plan extensive coverage in the coming months in CoDe Magazine about all this new stuff as it relates to developers.

However, I cannot answer your question yet about installation, since I have not yet installed the beta. But, considering that the Office System beta pack I received at TechEd is about 10-12 CD's, I'd suggest being very careful on a live system, cuz there's lot of bits being added or changed there. I'll have a look at the readme after I get home tonight and see if I can glean a few clues, but in general, as always, I'm sure it will say "you'd better not install this on a production system, and don't come crying to us about it if you do..." or something like that.