Problems with Office 2003 and 2010 together plus new email

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I have been operating with Windows 7 Home Premium. I have been using Office 2003. For my email client, I have been using Barca Mail. Although I really like Barca Mail, it has certain limitations that are becoming more and more obvious as it is now essentially abandoned and has not been developed for many years. I have about 6 different email accounts. I also use Dragon a lot for dictation as I have arthritis in my hands.

I thought long and hard about getting Office 365. But I just didn’t want to rent Office. I’ve heard good things about Office 2010, and it will continue to be supported for a good many more years, whereas support for office 2003 is ending in a few months.

The plan was to purchase a copy of Office 2010. I got a legitimate copy from Amazon. It was a big investment. I figured I would install it alongside office 2003, and continue to use 2003 while using 2010 so as to get adjusted to that new blankety-blank ribbon. This doesn’t seem to be working out very well. If I try to use anything in office 2003, it seems to corrupt the doc files, and then Word 2010 chokes up when I try to open a file.

I was able to get one of my accounts on Microsoft Outlook, and I think I’ll be able to slowly migrate stuff over there. But now I’m really stuck with the Microsoft Office suite. I don’t know if I I should uninstall 2003.

Another weird thing that I’ve noticed is that the gadget clock that I have is acting strangely. It’s the only gadget that I have, and I figured not much harm could come from having that one gadget. Maybe I’m wrong and should just follow Microsoft’s advice and disabled the whole sidebar. I also have some quick launch toolbars on the bottom of my window screen, and when I booted up this morning, they had disappeared and I had to reinstall them.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Although I have been receiving the newsletter (paid version) for a good many years now, I only now have registered for the forum and this is my 1st for a message.

Regards,

Alan

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Alan:

Welcome to the Lounge!

You can use Outlook 2003 with no problem for all of your email accounts if you choose to. However, if you choose to install a newer version of Outlook, you won’t be able to use both — you will have to abandon Outlook 2003 at that point. The conversion process is no problem, it’s just that you can’t have both versions of Outlook active at the same time.

I recommend using the same version of the other programs in Microsoft Office as the version of Outlook that you are using. For example, if I went with Outlook 2010, I would use Word 2010, Excel 2010, etc.

Office 365 and Office 2013 are the same, except that 365 is the rental version, and 2013 is the one you outright purchase.

Jim

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Have a look at this…..

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/default.aspx?sort=PN&alpha=Office+2003&Filter=FilterNO

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/

You’ll run into all kinds of issues running both office 2003 and 2010 at the same time on the same PC. I’m running office 2010 on my laptop and office 2013 on my desktop. Here’s a link for a free trial of office 2013…

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/try/

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Thanks to mrjimphelps and bassfisher6522 for the responses.

To mrjimphelps, I have been using neither the 2003 nor 2010 versions of Outlook. Instead, I was using Barca Mail, which is no longer being developed. However, I did have Office 2003 professional installed.

The problem, as bassfisher6522 indicates, is that Office 2003 and 2010 don’t like to be on the same computer. I’ve decided not to use 2003 and just learn the ribbon interface. I mostly use Word and Excel, and I will start using Outlook.

What I’m wondering is this: If I remove Office 2003 via the control panel, will that cause havoc with my 2010 installation? I’d like to keep some of the macros and dot files I used with Word 2003, but I’m not quite sure where they’re hidden. I’m also not quite sure if 2010 uses ACL files or where to find my old ones.

Regards,
Alan

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Thanks to mrjimphelps and bassfisher6522 for the responses.

To mrjimphelps, I have been using neither the 2003 nor 2010 versions of Outlook. Instead, I was using Barca Mail, which is no longer being developed. However, I did have Office 2003 professional installed.

The problem, as bassfisher6522 indicates, is that Office 2003 and 2010 don’t like to be on the same computer. I’ve decided not to use 2003 and just learn the ribbon interface. I mostly use Word and Excel, and I will start using Outlook.

What I’m wondering is this: If I remove Office 2003 via the control panel, will that cause havoc with my 2010 installation? I’d like to keep some of the macros and dot files I used with Word 2003, but I’m not quite sure where they’re hidden. I’m also not quite sure if 2010 uses ACL files or where to find my old ones.

Regards,
Alan

You’ll get used to the ribbon. It didn’t take me long, and I soon came to really like it.

I would advise uninstalling all instances of MS Office, rebooting, then installing the one you want. In this way, you start clean.

I’m not sure about the templates and macros. My guess is that you could save them into a separate folder before uninstalling anything, and then copy them back into the appropriate folders after you have installed the MS Office that you want to go with. What I don’t know is if there will be any incompatibilities. My thought is that there won’t be, but I don’t know for sure.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Thanks to all who made helpful suggestions. I’m slowly working my way through stuff now.

Regards,
Alan

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Hi Alan. I have run many programs from Office 2003 together with Office 2007, 2010, 2013 and now 365. OK I only ran Word/Excel 2003 with 2007, but had no problems. I ran Visio, Project and Access 2003 with 2010 (because I didn’t need upgrades). Now I only run Visio 2003 with 365 which goes OK. So if you want to keep 2003 with 2010 installed, I would give it a try. You don’t have anything to lose except time. You can always reinstall 2010.

I agree with you about the ribbon – it is pretty horrible and I have been using it for 7 years. However, the Quick Access Toolbar is pretty good. You can put all your shortcuts, macros etc on it, and keep the ribbon minimised. That way you only have to see the ribbon when something is not on your QAT. The big negative from my point of view is that Microsoft stupidly eliminated the ability for users to create and edit their own macro buttons in 2007. It is possible to do it in later versions, but not at all easy.

To bring all your settings across to 2010, open your Normal.dot template from 2003 in 2010 (File Open, don’t double click it) then save as template (dotx or dotm if you use macros).

Files from 2003 (doc) are or should be fully compatible with 2010 (docx). It can be useful to start working with docx, as the files are much smaller. Any time I open a doc file, I convert it to docx, and thus over time, most of my important files are docx.

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Files from 2003 (doc) are or should be fully compatible with 2010 (docx). It can be useful to start working with docx, as the files are much smaller. Any time I open a doc file, I convert it to docx, and thus over time, most of my important files are docx.

With huge files, saving them as docx can save a huge amount of space compared to doc.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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What I’m wondering is this: If I remove Office 2003 via the control panel, will that cause havoc with my 2010 installation? I’d like to keep some of the macros and dot files I used with Word 2003, but I’m not quite sure where they’re hidden. I’m also not quite sure if 2010 uses ACL files or where to find my old ones.

While mrjimphelps’ advice to uninstall both versions and then install only 2010 will do the job, it shouldn’t really be necessary. You can uninstall Office 2003, and then run a Repair of 2010 (in the Control Panel | Programs and Features, click on Office 2010 and click Change at the top of the window, then select Repair on the first page of the wizard). That will make sure the registry entries are correct for matching document types with default programs.

Uninstalling Office 2003 will not remove any of its documents, templates, macros, AutoCorrect entries, or add-ins. They’ll still be available for use in Office 2010. You should find the templates in the folder %appdata%MicrosoftTemplates, which Word 2010 also uses. Similarly, Word 2010 uses the same ACL files for AutoCorrect; you’ll find them in %appdata%MicrosoftOffice.

If you make a new document in Word 2010 based on a .dot template from Word 2003, it will say “Compatibility Mode” in the title bar, and some of the features of Word 2010 will be disabled. To fix that, open the template file itself (from File > Open), click File and click the Convert button, then save the template as a .dotx (non-macro) or .dotm (macro-enabled) template.

Most macros written for Word 2003 will work as is in Word 2010. The exceptions are mainly ones that work with or modify the menus and toolbars, which don’t exist in Word 2010, and ones that use the FileSystemObject (see http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-questions/643288-excel-2010-visual-basic-applications-replacement-application-filesearch.html for a replacement).

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1) Download UBitMenu from http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/ (free for private use) It installs a “Menu” menu in Excel, PowerPoint, and Word that contains pretty much the Office 2003 menus, and the Office 2003 toolbars. It makes life a lot easier when you just want to get something done and cannot find where it is in 2010.

I say “pretty much” because it has Convert Text to Table, but not Convert Table to Text (I ended up putting both of these items on the QAT; I use Ubitmenu mainly as a last resort). I also seem to remember that a couple of things are gone because 2010 handles them entirely differently.

2) Macros (Word is all I am talking about here):
File>Options>Customize Ribbon, enable the Developer tab. This tab gives you access to your macros and lets you record or use VB to create new ones. (It also has other “developer” stuff, including the 2003 Templates and Addins dialog box.)

3) Toolbars (Word is all I know about here):
Toolbar _items_ you created in 2003 will show up in the Addins tab of the ribbon, if you do things right.

Open the 2003 template containing your toolbars and enable _all_ of them. Change any 2003 toolbar buttons or icons you assigned to items in these toolbars to text only. Save the template.

Now, when you open the 2003 template in Word 2010 and convert it to a 2010 template, the now-text “buttons” show up in the Addins tab of the ribbon, sort of segregated into Custom Toolbars sections (I think it creates a new section when the current section contains 3 lines, with each line being one toolbar from 2003). This happens regardless of whether the old toolbar button was linked to a macro or a command. (I found out that it happens only for enabled toolbars the hard way – my 2003 normal.dot has 6 toolbars, but only 3 of them are usually enabled because the others are for special circumstances.)

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Hi! What I need is a guide to switching from Office 2007 into the current version. I’m =still= trying to figure out where some of the commands I use most might have gone…

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Hi! What I need is a guide to switching from Office 2007 into the current version. I’m =still= trying to figure out where some of the commands I use most might have gone…

See if the following help: User interface differences in Office 2010 vs earlier versions, Microsoft Office 2010: Interactive menu to ribbon guide, & Changes in Office 2013.

Joe

--Joe

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Hi! What I need is a guide to switching from Office 2007 into the current version. I’m =still= trying to figure out where some of the commands I use most might have gone…

All user settings, macros etc in 2007 are contained in Normal.dotm – the normal template. So the key is to bring that across into 2013 or 365. There are two ways to do this – one easy, one less so. The easy way is rename Normal.dotm (or dotx) in Word 2013 to Normal.old (or whatever) then copy your Normal.dotm into the same folder. Word 2013 should then include all your settings.

The more difficult but MS approved way which will definitely work is at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2790616#appliesto
This works if 2013 has not yet been installed, and will require you to create one or two registry keys

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How about using Windows Live Mail; you can then have all 6 of your email accounts right in front of you. I use it for my 3 email accounts with no problems. You can import all previous emails, too.
I have Office 2003 installed, but only Word-Excel-PP; not Outlook.

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Thanks for the tips – I may have to use them…

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How about using Windows Live Mail; you can then have all 6 of your email accounts right in front of you. I use it for my 3 email accounts with no problems. You can import all previous emails, too.

What extra accounts? If it can do gmail (which I use the most) and Yahoo (which I use just for the groups) and, of course, Hotmail/Outlook then I want to make a switch…

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If you don’t like the ribbon in Office 2010 you can easily hide it.

If you are used keystroke shortcuts in Office 2003 they should still work in later versions of Office.

Bill

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My wife is an expert at Word, so she showed me how to export the ribbon from Word 2003 and import it to 2010. I saved it and import it to all my computers including my work computer. I wish I could get Excel to accept it but it won’t. Eventually she will clean it up for me. I can do it, but it is much easier for her.

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My wife is an expert at Word, so she showed me how to export the ribbon from Word 2003 and import it to 2010. I saved it and import it to all my computers including my work computer. I wish I could get Excel to accept it but it won’t. Eventually she will clean it up for me. I can do it, but it is much easier for her.

The ribbon was introduced with Office 2007.

Joe

--Joe

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The ribbon was introduced with Office 2007.

Joe

ribbon shmibbon…whatever you want to call it. The top of my Word 2010 is a nice clean row of icons.

36369-Screenshot-2014-02-28-19.49.00

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I am new here and just saw this thread. I didn’t see this mentioned so pardon me, Office 2003 support will be dropped by Microsoft on April 8, same time as for WinXP. I wanted to keep FrontPage 2003 but was required to uninstall it when I moved up to the 64-bit version of Microsoft Office.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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I am new here and just saw this thread. I didn’t see this mentioned so pardon me, Office 2003 support will be dropped by Microsoft on April 8, same time as for WinXP. I wanted to keep FrontPage 2003 but was required to uninstall it when I moved up to the 64-bit version of Microsoft Office.

You can not have both a 32-bit Office product and a 64-bit Office product installed at the same time.

Joe

--Joe

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Yep, that’s what I said.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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