This does mean that an account at Microsoft Office Live Workspace is required before the add-in can be used. The service is free on the other hand and it takes only a few seconds to signup for it. Windows Live account users can use their account to signup for Microsoft Office Live Workspace. The service is currently in beta and provides access to 5 Gigabytes of storage space for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents that can also be edited on the website.

Office 2007 users find the option to upload their documents to the Microsoft Office Live Workspace and to open documents from the online storage space under the Microsoft Office button in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Office 2003 and XP users get a new Office Live toolbar that provides access to three buttons that offer the functionality to open documents that are stored at Microsoft Office Live Workspace, save documents so that they are stored online and to open the Office Live Workspace website.

The Office Live Add-in itself is compatible with Microsoft Office 2007, Office 2003 and Office XP.

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Microsoft Office Slipstreamer looks pretty much alike and one could think that both software programs have been developed by the same person. There are however some differences that are worth to be mentioned. The latter supports Office 2000 and above while Office 2000 is not supported (yet) by Microsoft Office Integrator. That leaves Office 2000 users with no other choice but to select Microsoft Office Slipstreamer.

Both applications work the same way. The user begins by picking the setup.exe of his Office installation disk and a destination for the installation disk that will be created. He then picks Service Packs and Hotfixes for his Office product which will be integrated into Office which is the greatest benefit of slipstreamed software.

It is possible to enter the Office product key so that it is entered automatically during installation. Microsoft Office Slipstreamer can also fill out the Organization automatically. The user can also point at additional files that should be installed after Office setup has finished. That’s called Chained Installations.

Both support the creation of AIO (All In One) CD or DVDs and to create Iso images that can be burned easily. It basically comes down to Office 2000 support versus no Office 2000 support.

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The most notable is that it is a privacy issue for the author of the document. I would not feel comfortable if I had to publish a document on the Internet that would contain information about me. The information could also be used by someone else to find out if you are the real author of the document.

Microsoft’s Remove Hidden Data tool for Office 2003 and Office XP is an add-in that provides the user with an option to remove that meta data from the documents. The application that created the document has to be installed to make this work though. I’m not sure if it is backwards compatible but it seems to be logical that it should be.

The application can be controlled from within the applications of Microsoft Office or from the command line. The following information can be removed with the Office tool:

• Comments.
• Previous authors and editors.
• User name.
• Personal summary information.
• Revision marks. The tool accepts all revisions specified in the document. As a result, the contents of the document will correspond to the Final Showing Markup view on the Reviewing toolbar.
• Deleted text. This data is removed automatically.
• Versions.
• VB Macros. Descriptions and comments are removed from the modules.
• The ID number used to identify your document for the purpose of merging changes back into the original document.
• Routing slips.
• E-mail headers.
• Scenario comments.
• Unique identifiers (Office 97 documents only).

Restrictions prevent it from removing those information from the following types of documents:

• Documents using rights-management permissions
• Protected documents
• Digitally signed documents
• Shared workbooks

It does work pretty well. Users of Office 2007 on the other hand do not need to install this tool because the feature to remove the hidden data was build into that application. More on that later.

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