Does Microsoft Office XP require Windows XP or a higher version?

Office XP suites will run on the Microsoft Windows®3.x, Microsoft Windows NT®3.5x, or Microsoft Windows95 operating systems. If your computers are currently running one of these operating systems, you must upgrade the operating system before installing Office XP.

All versions of Office XP require an installation of Microsoft Internet Explorer to be on the computer because Office applications take advantage of services provided by the browser. Office uses these Internet Explorer services behind the scenes, however, so there is no requirement that Internet Explorer be set as the default browser on the computer.

By default, Office XP installs Internet Explorer5.01 at the same time as it installs the System Files Update. (Office will not install Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows2000, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me), or higher operating system versions since those operating systems already have Internet Explorer5.01 or above.) If you prefer to stay with an earlier version of Internet Explorer, you can turn off the default installation through Setup or the Custom Installation Wizard. Office XP requires as a minimum Internet Explorer4.01 with Service Pack1 (the version first released with Windows98). Any later version of Internet Explorer will work correctly with Office XP.