In an unexpected shift from its recent focus on subscription-based software, Microsoft is reportedly intending to release a new standalone version of its Office suite in 2024. This latest iteration, dubbed Office 2024, is presently in development and is expected to hit the market in the third or fourth quarter of the year.
The move comes amidst Microsoft’s increasing emphasis on its cloud-based Microsoft 365 service, which offers access to the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office applications for a monthly or yearly fee.
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Leaked interface of Office and its trial version
This content, exclusively leaked by XDA, shows how Office 2024 will come with the usual services, such as Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, or Access, among others. With the upcoming modifications in its payment policy, the 2024 version will return to the path of Office 2021, the last version that applied for one-time payments.
Microsoft 2024, thus, commercially focuses on a very different path than what Microsoft Office 365 had been presenting, with subscription systems that, besides being unattractive, have caused them to lose users in favor of other services with more suitable conditions, and even free alternatives.
How to install the Microsoft Office 2024 preview
We are going to use two fantastic open-source projects by a developer named abbodi1406 for downloading as well as the installation of the Office binaries. The first one is called “Yet Another Office Click To Run URL Generator” (or YAOCTRU for short), while the second tool is known as “Yet Another Office Click To Run Installer” (aka YAOCTRI). You can read more about them in their GitHub repository.
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- Download the latest version of YAOCTRU zip archive from the author’s GitHub scripts repo.
- At the time of the report, the latest version of YAOCTRU is v9.0.
- Extract the contents of the archive, then execute the file named YAOCTRU_Generator.cmd. You don’t require admin privileges, so a regular double-click would do just okay.
- Opt for the DevMain Channel entry in the updated channel selection menu. Then select your preferred architecture of the binaries (32-bit/64-bit), vocabulary, and Office source components.
- At this stage, you must select the suitable output format. The tool can generate aria2, wget, and curl-compatible download scripts, and you can even settle with an old-school text file with URLs for manual downloading using your favored download manager.
- Download the preview version of Office 2024 using the script/URL list you generated before.
- Note that Windows 11 and Windows 10 version 1803 or later ship with a curl executable out of the box. As a result, you can utilize the curl download script as it is without the need to install anything else.
- Now that the source files are prepared, download the latest version of YAOCTRI zip archive from the author’s GitHub scripts repo for the installation part.
- At the moment of writing, the latest version of YAOCTRI is v10.7.
- Extract the contents of the library, and move Reference-C2R_Config.ini, YAOCTRI_Configurator.cmd, and YAOCTRI_Installer.cmd inside the folder where you downloaded the Office components.
- Right-click on the YAOCTRI_Configurator.cmd file and run it as administrator. It should automatically detect the Office installation files.
- At the product selection prompt, make sure to choose one of the 2024 branded options. For example, the Office ProPlus 2024 entry will cover most of the common Office programs.
- If everything goes straight, the script will help you to finalize the deployment configuration data and install the suite. Choose Install Now to start the wizard.
- After Office is successfully installed, open any Office app, then go to File => Account to see the Office 2024 branding.
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Conclusion
The release of Office 2024 is good news for users like me who like to own their software licenses. It also recommends that Microsoft is still committed to supporting standalone versions of Office, even though it is pushing its subscription-based model.
