Unlike past Office releases, Microsoft no longer sells the suite as an upgrade, so when you install Office 2010 as a new and separate product, you’ll need to also uninstall the older Office version.

Don’t worry; you don’t really need to keep your older Office version on your hard drive because Office 2010 makes it easy for you to open and edit older Office files. So save some hard drive space and uninstall that older Office version.

1. From Your Control Panel

First, open your Control Panel from the Start menu. If you’re using Windows 7, choose Uninstall A Program below the Programs category. If you’re using Windows XP, choose Add Or Remove Programs, regardless of whether your Control Panel displays in the Classic or Category view.

2. Find the Older MS Office Version in the List

Look through the list of programs that appears and select the one that corresponds with the older Office version you need to uninstall.

3. Click Uninstall or Remove

In Windows 7, click Uninstall from the top pane; in Windows XP, click the Remove button that appears when you select a listing.

4. Follow On-Screen Directions

Next, follow the directions given within the dialog boxes that appear on-screen. For example, when we uninstalled a Microsoft Office trial version in Windows 7, we clicked Yes when the dialog box asked us if we were sure we wanted to uninstall the product, and the uninstallation continued on its own for a few minutes before notifying us that the process was complete.

By using the Control Panel, uninstalling older Office versions is painless.