Overall, Microsoft's technical support is very good; however, it will cost you. Your first two e-mail or phone questions to the help desk are free (and those related to installation are always free). But after that, you pony up $35 per incident, and this policy applies to all of the bundles. The desk is staffed only from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends, PT. And get this: the two free phone calls are toll calls, but the $35 support calls are toll-free. At least our two e-mailed queries were answered the next day, and the rep was on the mark with both responses.

Almost all of Office's help files are excellent and update themselves when you connect to the Internet.

The always-free Office Online is a one-stop Web resource for everything from free templates to how-to guides and is accessible from the Help menu of any Office application or from within the Task Panes within the Office programs, as long as you're connected to the Internet. In fact, when you fire up help within an app, it pulls the information from Office Online, in addition to files located on your hard drive, so assistance is always up-to-date.

Office System retains Check For Updates and Detect And Repair options in the Help menu. These features operate online; the former sniffs for updates or patches, and the latter repairs any damaged or corrupted application files. Often this resolves the problem.