A little while back there was a thread about an involvement by Microsoft in the FIRST kits. Did anybody hear anything about that? It’s a little farfetched in my opinion, but their participation might be benificial for both the teams and Microsoft. Anybody at all?
The thread you’re looking for is right here. Interesting proposal, I’d personally prefer Project over XP. Our team purchased 6 copies [of Microsoft Project] this year, but we’re having a heck of time trying to include it into the team workflow.
I dont even see the purpose of having XP for a team… maybe i’m over looking something. I have XP and i see nothing special that a FIRST team could use, atleast from the Home Edition
It is just a rumor (i think), but I think that it would be really cool of Microsoft to bundle Windows XP with the Kit-o-parts. There really isnt anything specific in Windows XP Pro either, but it is the most stable, user friendly OS. I think I only had like 5 or 6 keystrokes for install and it did everything from there, and I haven’t had a crash yet (and I even do some mild OCing). Perhaps not as a purpose-specific gift, but as a gesture or the partnership between Microsoft and FIRST - if it exits, this is all just a rumor anyway.
This is just a repeat of what I said, but I got an e-mail (I forget who sent the e-mail). I think about the time of the A&E presentation. And in other news it said that FIRST was disappointed about the yearbook submissions last year, and say that only a 1/3 or something like that made one up. The number one complaint to this was that some people didn’t have access to office, and lower programs like works didn’t read the sample file. They said, that they were hoping next year to give us access to office, if we don’t have it available to us. Plus they also said that due to FIRST limited staff or something like that, that it would hope teams would type up some of the paperwork that the employees did in the past. They also said that some people who used alternative word processors like Appleworks, MSworks, lotus, etc. which FIRST couldn’t read or took to much time to convert.
I don’t know of this was talk or something hinting that we would have access to Office XP.
I work with the coordinator for the NYC regional and she has told me and several other teams is that we will get microsoft office with front page to help us apply for the various awards plan out our 6 weeks and get our web pages done
If Microsoft does get involved in FIRST do you think an official FIRST video game would be released? X-Box baby!!! Whoo Hoo!!
Based on top secret information, having microsoft software in the kits is not a rumor.
(If the above isn’t a rumor, I don’t know what is ;))
Edit: you guys read to much into the threads. The original only said XP software. Microsoft does make something else branded XP besides the operating system (hint…hint…).
Don’t even tell me that Microsoft is going to put that waste of time Electronics Simulation software of theirs into the kit. If anything put EWB into the kits!
I believe that Joe is hinting at Office XP.
~Tom Fairchild~, who wants a cookie for figuring out such a difficult riddle. 
Forgive me for being ignorant about such matters -
But, wouldn’t Microsoft Office XP be useless without Windows XP?
As such, would they include Office in the kit, and expect the teams to go get licenses for the OS? That doesn’t seem like it makes much sense.
Actually, Office Xp will run on any operating system, not just Windows Xp.
Got it 
Well, then, I guess that’s cool. I’d rather see something like that ship with the rest of the software, though. The last thing I need to add another item to the to-do list when January finally rolls around.
Concerning getting licences and serial numbers for Windows XP/Office (if either at all), Microsoft would more than likely include the Corporate Edition. This allows for several installs with the same registration number which is then monitored by Microsoft. They allow a certain number of registrations with that number and then it doesnt work anymore. The corporate version of the OS also alows for changes in hardware configuration without waiting for the time limit to expire, or having to call in.