IS&T recommends Windows users wait to install Microsoft Office 2010

In collaboration with colleagues across campus, Information Services and Technology (IS&T) has been testing and evaluating Microsoft Office 2010 since its release on June 15, 2010.

At this time, IS&T does not recommend installing Microsoft Office 2010 on production machines. IS&T's currently supported version of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise, VSE 8.7i, does not support Microsoft Office 2010 products, particularly Microsoft Outlook 2010. Using Microsoft Office 2010 could potentially expose the MIT community to security threats.

McAfee: schedule and known issues
According to the McAfee KnowledgeBase, “VSE 8.8 will support Microsoft 2010 products. VSE 8.8 is scheduled for release by the end of 2010.”

In an e-mail from McAfee to the IS&T Microsoft Office 2010 Release Team, the vendor identified two known issues impacting its support of Office 2010:

1. On native 64-bit installs of Office 2010, the 64-bit VB scripts are not scanned.
2. Outlook scanner does not support Outlook 2010. (This is being addressed in VSE 8.8.)

Please note that McAfee has not completed its testing of Microsoft Office 2010 and more issues may be discovered. Until McAfee releases a version of VirusScan Enterprise that supports Microsoft Office 2010, IS&T strongly recommends that the MIT community wait to install Office 2010 on production machines.

If you have questions, please contact the release team or check with your department's local IT support provider. If you would like to participate in the release of Office Professional Plus 2010, send mail to the release team.

For more details, visit IS&T's Office 2010 Release Project page.