Office 2013 Preview: Get the MSI Download

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This post refers to the Office 2013 Preview — this was pre-release software that is no longer available. All techniques mentioned in this post will not work with the final release version of Office 2013.

We already explored how you can install the Consumer Preview version of Office 2013 using the conventional CTR approach where the entire installation is streamed to your computer. This of course requires that you have lots of time, a fast internet connection — and worse, if you want to install the Consumer Preview on multiple machines, you’ll have to repeat the process for each machine!

Clearly there has to be an alternative option — and indeed there is. This download that runs the setup locally on your system is available as an MSI file. However, be aware that if you choose this download MSI option, you cannot run Office 2013 along with an older version of Office on the same system.

You get this download version by clicking the link right at the bottom of this page — Microsoft really went out of their way to hide this link!

Here’s a step-by-step walk through of the process:

1. Clicking the link provided above asks you to sign in to your Microsoft account — this is essentially your Windows Live account. If you already have a Hotmail, MSN, or XBox Live account, then that’s your Microsoft account. You can sign in with your Microsoft account, or choose the alternative to create a new account altogether just for this beta — that’s what we did.



2. Once you are signed in, you see this page with your serial number provided (we blacked out the serial number for this screenshot). Select a language, and then click either the Download 32-bit Software (shown in the screenshot) or the Download 64-bit Software button (not visible in the screenshot).



3. If you are using a browser other than Internet Explorer, you’ll see a Please wait while the download begins screen, and the download may begin immediately at this point. If you are using Internet Explorer, you will see a Please wait while the Download Manager begins your download screen.



4. Internet Explorer users will next see a Download Manager that lets you pause and resume the download (see the screen-shots below).





5. The entire download is not too large at 625 mb.

In the next post in this series, we will install the downloaded MSI file.