Reviews for Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Office 2003 full retail version under $100

Strengths: full retail version including the box (not just a CD)

Weakness: none

Very pleased with price, delivery time, and features. I had a hard time getting it to pass Validation, but that was my fault. After uninstalling all the old Office software and purging the Registry, it worked just fine.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Single Disk Install, Licensed for 3 computers, Upgradeable, good Junk Mail feature, and Outlook meeting scheduling

Weakness: None

I use this at the school where I teach and this is a super economical way to put it on my three kid's computers. The license agreement, and the single disk installation make it a super deal. This is normally $200 per install but with this licensing it cost only $40 per install. This has all the bells and whistles...and it's upgradeable!

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Easy to install

Weakness: None that I can find so far.

When I bought my PC the Micorsoft Office Student and Teacher 2003 Program was only good for 90 days. After I researched other programs, I decided that I liked the one already installed. When the time was up, notification reminders were automatically sent. There was an option to renew at Microsoft. Since that price was higher than the one I found on Pricegrabber, I didn't go that route. I researched other programs. It's true that choosing a product that was already installed & was just getting a renewal was the easiest route, but so far I am well pleased. I can install this program on all the PCs on my home network. I like it, it works, & I'm satisfied with the purchase. When I first researched my PC purchase, I read reviews that this already installed program was only good for 90 days & that purchasing the product would cost $500.00. That was not my experience & going to Pricegrabber rather than directly to the Microsoft site allowed a $30.00 savings...It pays to shop around! Thanks for reading. I hope this helps.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Excellent word processing, presentation production, and task management.

Weakness: None

Great price in comparison to other editions. As long as you meet the requirements, I would recommend this buy. A must for all desiring great productivity.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Much less expensive than the Standard version, has all of the same programs (Word, Excel, Power Point, et). Easy to install and use. Good tutorials.

Weakness: None!

I have the 2002 version of Office on other computers in my household. I purchased the 2003 version when I bought a new computer and you can install it on up to 3 computers in the same household - this is the best deal around! I highly recommend using this version, if you qualify.

89% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: The industry standard

This is a good version for private home use. MS will allow installation on up to 3 family computers in the same house. You need to have a student or teacher in the household and register it under their name. Must activate the product on-line after installation, but it's quick and easy.

88% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

By member: Draugrs - Dec 21, 2006

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Low cost with only the needed programs.

Weakness: None

I find the use of Office 2003 Student Teacher Edition a good compliment to my computer experience. It does not contain the programs I do not use.

83% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Easy to use, has everything you need in one source.

Weakness: None!

This is the real deal - a complete set of Word, Excel, Power Point and Outlook at a great price. There is no difference between this version and the main version of Office. I found it easy to use and a bargain to boot.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Excellent Microsoft package; comes with Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook; good for student use (presentations, papers, spreadsheets, etc.)

Weakness: doesn't have publisher or outlook with business contact; otherwise it's excelent

Overall, I think this is an excellent purchase; for around $100 you can get the basic Microsoft Office tools on your computer and be functional as far as writing papers, creating spreadsheets, sending e-mail, keeping contact info and appointments, and make presentations. Microsoft office is the standard amongst desktop utilities, and for this price it's better than getting wordperfect or sticking with microsoft works.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: MS product has versibility

Weakness: No weakness for this program that I can think of

Even though I keep looking around at different word processing programs, I always end up keep coming back to MS Office for Students and Teachers.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: 100% compatible with Microsoft Office

Weakness: 100% compatible with Microsoft Office

Overpriced, but essential. Complicated licensing options is confusing and annoying. Product itself is fine, although redlining feature, which I use a lot, needs a significant upgrade. Also, there is a need to be able to remove hidden information about the document (metadetails).

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: powerful package; nice platform,

Weakness: less improvement from old version

It is affordable for students (though it is still expensive) and it is nice to allow to be installed into 3 PCs. The improvment is not obvious.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Many very useful features and improvements, such as "Read" mode in Word. License for 3 users in the household is a welcome change.

Weakness: Does not support Windows 98 or ME. Only 2000 and XP. Look and feel is less professional than prior versions.

Microsoft continues to improve the Office suite with each version, improving ease of use, and adding desirable features. I particularly like "Read" mode in Word, which allows one to easily read a document in a format suitable for the screen, instead of a seeing the document as it would be printed. The use of the right margin for help and style sheet information is also helpful, and the change tracking and comment functions are improved over earlier versions (though I haven't used Office XP).

The introduction, a few years ago, of the students and teachers edition at a discounted price was very welcome, and should really be available to all non-commercial users, in my opinion. Even this version is overpriced for what most home users would get out of it. The change to a 3 user license at least mitigates the price issue, and recognizes the reality of student and teacher households, if not academic institution needs.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Standard Utilities every student needs: Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook.

Weakness: No Microsoft Publisher, which comes in handy if you would ever like to make a website.

Great for someone on a budget who doesn't want to pay extra for those programs he/she might never even use (Access, Publisher). I am a student, and to me there isn't really any other option.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office Student and Teacher 2003

Strengths: Single disk installation, licensed for 3 users, widely accepted file format at most schools

Weakness: Windows 2000/xp only, activation required

I have used MS office products for several years and have generally been satisfied. I know many people do not like MS for various reasons, but it is hard not to recommend a product that is so widely used in business and academic circles. We had tried the Open Office freeware products as an alternative and found them to be very commendable, but it was somewhat of a chore to convert files to MS format when needed for a school assigment or business need and we would occasionally lose something (formatting, etc) in the conversion.


The Office XP/2003 incorporates some useful features over my previous Office 2000 suite, although the newer style may seem less "professional". One feature that has yet to be fully tested is the fact that the software offers an option to retain certain installation files on your computer for easier updating--hopefully no more need to either archive the entire installation disk(s) or manually insert disks when office security or other product updates become available.


The student/teacher version is useful in that it allows my children to have there own copies installed on their personal computers rather than having to use my desktop or laptop. However, it does not appear that the license allows for a user to also use the product on a laptop (the license seems to indicate that this would count as another one of the 3 users). My previous Office version licensed for only one user did allow use on a laptop for the same user.

94% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Strong programs for students, costs much less than Office Basic 2003 (although it is the same program).

Weakness: Costs way too much, even after the discount for being a student/teacher.

This edition of Office is a very strong suite, especially for the reduced price. You are supposed to be a student or teacher to buy it. It includes the 2003 editions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook--the same programs as Office Basic 2003. A great deal if you want to stick with Office and you are a student.

71% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Microsoft Online is a very helpful feature in the Excel program. However, the instructions on the most basic aspects of initiating a spreasheet are somewhat lacking.

Microsoft Office Outlook is not as user friendly as Outlook Express - more limited in terms of less flexibility in the mail folder management options.

50% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Microsoft Office 2003 Student & Teacher Edition

Strengths: Includes powerful word processor, spreadsheet, & presentation graphics package. Substantially improved EULA. Same software used by most offices & schools. Much lower price than full retail version.

Weakness: Only runs on Windows 2000 or Windows XP (can't use with Windows 95, 98, or ME OS). Bloated feature set. Few if any useful improvements from MS Office XP (which runs on Windows 95, 98, and ME OS).

MS Office 2003 for Students and teachers is a perfectly adequate suite of office tools (wprd processor, spreadsheet, presentation graphics, and e-mail client). The only Microsoft product missing from this version of the suite is MS Access, a database product that most users would have little if any use for. The primary advantage to this suite to the available alternatives is that it is in use at probably 90% of the schools and business in the U.S.. In my opinion, this is the only reason to choose it over the two major available competing products (WordPerfect Office Suite and StarOffice/OpenOffice)).

Although I do not believe that technically, the 2003 version of MS Office offers any advantage to most of us and I am unhappy that Microsoft did not make it backwards compatible with earlier versions of its Windows operating system (it only runs on Windows XP or Windows 2000), long overdue changes that Microsoft made in its End User License Agreement (EULA) make it a much more desirable product for those of us that have more than one computer at home. The new EULA specifically authorizes use by students, teachers, and members of their household. It also authorizes noncommercial use on up to 3 home PCs.

This is a major advantage over the EULA for MS Office XP for Students and Teachers (it is extremely shortsighted of Microsoft to not make this EULA change retroactive for previous versions of their office suite!). I currently own two copies of Microsoft Office XP for Students and Teachers that I have installed on the computers used by my high school age son and my soon to be college freshman son. Since the EULA for this product allows installation on only one PC, up until now I had to install and use Open Office (an excellent FREE variant of Star Office) on my eldest son's laptop cpmputer and on the other three computers in our house. With the new Microsoft EULA, if I chose, with two copies of MS Office 2003, I could install MS Office on all my home computers (except that my high school age son's computer uses the Windows ME operating system and MS Office 2003 is not compatible with Windows ME).

If you must have a totally Microsoft compatible office suite, MS Office for Students and Teachers (especially with the EULA changes for the 2003 version) is your most cost effective option.

If you are going to buy the suite, be sure to shop around and check for sales and rebates. I was able to acquire my copy for $99.99 from Office Depot (they price matched CompUSA which had it on sale) and they offered a $20 rebate. This brought my total cost down to around $85 with tax and costs to mail in the rebate. This is a substantial discount off the $149.95 list price.

Another option to consider if you only need a totally Microsoft compatible word processor is the Microsoft Works Suite which includes a full version of Microsoft Word. It also includes Microsoft Street and Trips, Microsoft Money, Microsoft Encarta, and several other Microsoft software products. I have seen that package for as low as $30 after rebates. Note that to the best of my knowledge, the Microsoft Works Suite still retains the old Microsoft EULA that allows you to install the suite on only one computer rather than three.

A final (very attractive) option that you should consider is the totally FREE Open Office suite that can be downloaded via the web. You can load and use this product on as many computers as you wish at no cost. Open Office provides an extremely powerful and complete office suite that can read files created with Microsoft Office and save files to a format compatible with the comparable Microsoft Office applications (note that as far as I can tell Open Office does not include a database application equivalent to Microsoft Access included with Microsoft Office Pro). It also saves natively to an open "XML" format. However, the command structure and "look and feel" is somewhat different from the Microsoft products so if you either use or have been trained on the Microsoft products, you will experience a learning curve in becoming proficient with the Open Office products.

96% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?