Upgrading From Office 97 to Office 2003... 1

[tyhand]

Hey all,

I'm upgrading from Office 97 to Office 2003.

Yes, I know - I'm ancient...

Anyway, I have MS office 2003 professional - the Full Version.

1) Do I need to completely Uninstall Office 97 in order to install Office 2003?

2) I use Outlook Express for email. Will I be able to migrate my accounts, settings and message rules over to Outlook 2003 without much problems?

3) Are there any issues you guys know about of which I should be made aware?

Thanks in advance for the help.

- TYHAND

 

[wayneryeven]

1) yes an uninstall is required. Im sure you wont have any requirement to continue running 97 if you have 03?
2) Yes you will. Outlook Express doesnt ship with Office 03 Pro so it will remain. Outlook will be installed.
3) There are many issues that COULD happen, but you wont know till they manifest themselves.

Control Panel, Uninstall Office 97 and reboot.
Then insert your 03 CD and follow the install.
Reboot, and trial your new applications.

 

[tyhand]

Hi Wayner,

Thanks for the help.

I noticed one of the Install options is "Upgrade". There's also "complete", "minimal", "typical" and "custom".

Selecting "Upgrade" apparently handles the Uninstall of any previous versions. But, I'm wondering if a complete Uninstall of Office 97 via Add/Remove Programs is better as opposed to doing the "upgrade" and letting the Install program do the work.

As far as what "Could" happen... yes, you're right. I guess it's one of the setbacks of MS products.

Best.

 

[wayneryeven]

if it were me id do a complete uninstall manually rather than an upgrade. an upgrade can leave behind some files, extensions that could cos issues down the line.

 

[wlfpackr]

We did a site-wide upgrade (550+ PCs) from Office 97 to Office 2003 3-4 years ago. We just ran the Upgrade option and experienced very few issues. It migrated Outlook 97 settings over, but I'm not sure what would happen with Outlook Express?

Not saying you will or won't have issues, but surprisingly we had a very high success rate and very few (if any) post installation problems that could be traced back to the upgrade.

=================
There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that do not.

 

[wayneryeven]

as a rollout yes an upgrade based on time required for uninstall etc. but for personal user who may not have time/expertise to trace down post install probs 5 mins of an uninstall may server as an advantage!