changing from Office 97 to Office 2003

[Steve]

If I uninstall Office 97 and install Office 2003, do I
lose all of the Outlook data? If so, is there a way to
save these in files or folders prior to the
uninstallation so that I can import this data back into
the new Office 2003 Outlook? What is the best way to do
this change of Office platforms?

 

[Chris Schatte]

Steve,
Your upgrade to Office 2003 should go fine. The ones I've done from 2000, 2002 have gone great with no loss of data. Just to be sure we always backup any pertinent data, .pst file and documents associated with the prior version. Here is an article on how to backup your .pst file in Outlook 97:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;168644&Product=ofw97

You will have an option to remove prior versions of Office during the upgrade. Another option given is to remove setup files for Office 2003, it is best practice to leave these files installed for ease in future updates and service packs to Office 2003.
There are a few changes in 2003, no shortcut bar, Picture Manager instead of Photo Editor. If you use these, you can do a custom install from the previous version.

Chris Schatte