Office 2003 in a Windows 7 world 1

[dan2229]

I recently replaced my old XP laptop with a new laptop from Asus running Windows 7 Home Premium. Alas, my Adobe CS2 will not run on Windows 7, but I was able to get Office 2003 (which I use at work) to run by right clicking on the setup exe and telling it to run through the wizard and operate like the XP service pack 3.

It works great with no hickups!

Daniel

 

[fumei]

Yet...but hopefully it will stay that way!

Gerry

 

[cmeagan656]

Office 2003 is 100% compatible with Windows 7 without having to go through any hoops to install it. I've installed Office 2003 on a Windows 7 64-bit system and it runs perfectly without having had to install it to run as if the OS was XP service pack 3.

Hope this helps.

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[lionelhill]

It would be rather sad if Microsoft couldn't make their own operating system backward-compatible to their own current software (I class Office2003 as current on grounds that more queries here seem to relate to Office2003 than Office2007).

 

[traycee]

I agree with cmeagan656. I've installed office 2003 on many Windows 7 computers without any effort at all. It installs just like it always has and runs without issue.

Adobe CS2 on the other hand does not run in Windows 7 and is no longer supported by Adobe. It's life cycle to over. Adobe recommends upgrading to CS4, of course. Which does run fine in Windows 7 and is supported by Adobe.

 

[anationalacrobat]

Office 2010 is slated for June 2010. And this is when most organizations still haven't gone to 2007 yet! The ribbon and breaking things for no good reason is one factor; money is another. The ONLY reason why I upgraded to 2007 was for the extra rows in Excel. The ribbon has me chewing on the walls and cursing the sky.

There's going to be very fragmented market out there for the foreseeable future. Will 2010 break backwards compatibility as badly as 2007? I never had as much trouble working between 97 and 2k, 2k and 23k, etc.

 

[tf1]

Office 2010 and 2007 are fully compatible. Most of the changes are really just putting it as it should have been for 2007.

I'm still not sold on the ribbon though: it's sort of like the row over Iraq - I was never convinced and still ain't! The war costs billions to execute, millions to keep going and I can't see any benefit.

BTW Office 2010 RC is now released.


Regards: Terry

 

[anationalacrobat]

I suppose I could start a proper holy war here by asking opinions concerning sharepoint. I'll have to give the RC a whirl. Is it open like 7's thing or do you have to be on a special list?

 

[tf1]

I believe anyone can download Sharepoint 2010 betas from here

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee514561.aspx

Regards: Terry

 

[lionelhill]

While we're on the subject of the ribbon:

The one thing that I would really, really like to do with the ribbon is stick it down the side of the screen, rather than along the top. A bit like moving the Windows taskbar.

My thinking is that increasingly I'm working with a screen that's much wider than it is tall, to look at a document that is much taller than it is wide. If the trend continues, I'll be soon able to see about 3 lines vertically, but 4 pages side by side!

Editing a document is a bit like doing key-hole surgery through a bloomin' a letterbox.

 

[tf1]

I ditto that. One reason I liked the Task Panes introduced in Word 2003 was they suited the width of widescreen monitors very well. I permanently kept a custom toolbar down the left of the screen and the Task Pane down the right of the screen. All easy to set up and wonderfully productive.

Then along came a ribbon...


Regards: Terry

 

[cmeagan656]

I double ditto that. I have a 23.6" widescreen monitor so I have more width than height. I keep the ribbon minimized. Any commands that I use a lot I either use the keyboard shortcut for or I add it to the Quick Access Toolbar.

Hope this helps.

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[anationalacrobat]

I think part of the solution would be rotating monitors. I've seen them in the past but they were very custom kit. Use the iphone tech to make the screen resizing automatic. Then when you are editing a document you can rotate your screen 90 degrees and move from landscape to portrait.

Here's an example of what's on the market.

http://www.pacificgeek.com/product.asp?c=232&s=947&ID=855295&P=F

But I think you're still stuck going into your settings to rotate the screen when you do that -- unless they provide a driver or something.

The next time I'm ordering hardware I'm asking for something like this.

 

[fumei]

Task Panes were introduced in Office 2002, not 2003.

I hate the ribbons. I hate the ribbons. I hate the ribbons. I hate the ribbons. I hate the ribbons.

Totally agree with the on-the-side thing. If they have to go with ribbons (and someone tell me why????), absolutely, you should be able to place them independently! anywhere you want. But especially on the side, as more and more people are using wide-screen monitors. The ribbons take up way too much real estate as it is.

To me, they are mostly an example of annoying "eye-candy", and were created solely because they could, and the programmers thought they looked cool.

Gerry

 

[SunnyByfleet]

Sorry but having to rotate a monitor in order to work with a software "feature" is not a solution.

My question is this. Does anybody actually like the 2007 interface?

 

[fumei]

Does anybody actually like the 2007 interface? "

Yes, some people do.

Gerry

 

[anationalacrobat]

I don't believe you!

 

[fumei]

OK, I was making that up. However, surely there must be someone who likes it.




Anyone?




Just kidding.

Gerry

 

[anationalacrobat]

I heard Lady Gaga was planning on making an entire outfit out of Office ribbons.

 

[strongm]

Forrester Research surveys suggest that 80% of people liked the Ribbon interface in Office 2007, while only 2.4% found it "significantly more difficult".