Compatability of 2007 Office with Office 2000

[Nigel Cornwall]

I have users on Office 2000 and I am looking to upgrade some users to Office
2007. The beta release has converter for office 2007 in Office 2003 & Office
XP.

Will there a release of converters for 2007 available for Office 2000?

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Nigel,

The converters actually come in two pieces. One is called the awareness
update and only supports Office XP and 2003. The Awareness update makes
Office XP and 2003 aware of the new file extensions. That means, Office
XP and 2003 will be associated with the new file extensions. If a user
doesn't have the compatibility pack installed, the awareness update will
alert the user that these are 2007 files and point him or her to where
the compatibility pack can be downloaded. The Awareness update will be
included in all patches for XP and 2003, so it should be available to a
wide range of users.
The actual converter is the compatibility pack. It handles converting
the file and making it available to the user. The system requirement for
the compatibility pack is Windows 2000 SP4. That means no matter what
the Office version, a user that has at least Win2000 SP4 can convert
to/from the new file formats and the old binary ones.

As long as your Office 2000 users are at least running Win2000 SP4, they
will be able to use the new file formats. I think you should be able to
play with the compatibility pack and see for yourself how easy or
difficult this is to use in your situation.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Nigel Cornwall]

Let's simpllify the question.
Can an Office 2000 user click on a file created in 2007 Office, edit &
change it and save it in 2007 format? Just as they would if it were a native
Ofiice 2000 document?

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Nigel,

Simple answer would be 'maybe'. Officially, Office 2000 will be out of 'mainstream support' in its life cycle
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle
and the 2007 converters
http://microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/converter.mspx
follow Microsoft's usual support cycle of current version plus two versions back (Word 2002 and 2003).

Microsoft hasn't made any official announcement that I recall on extending the converter use to older versions and there won't be
formal testing on those versions, but on the Windows 2000+SP4 box that has both Office 2000 and Office 2003 installed, the
converters are available in Word 2000. There, opening is okay as far as speed, but saving in .docx rather than in .doc is very
slow. Even on Word 2003 the opening and saving with the converter is slow enough to brew a cup of coffee before a file is open <g>.
While some of that is from the beta, I wouldn't expect the conversion process on longer files to perform as well as the simpler task
of opening the .doc native version (for example) in older versions of Word.

What I don't have available at present is a system that has only Office 2000 on it, so I can't test to see if the File Format
Awareness and Compatability Converter 'twin-pack' installs are checking to see if Office XP/2002 and/or Office 2003 components are
installed (i.e. don't know if the install would fail on an Office 2000 only system).

My suggestion would be to setup a test box with Office 2000 on it and download and attempt to install the twin-pack, and let us know
the results. Using typical files in use in your day to day operations will be a better test than any of the folks here testing on
files that may have features you don't use.

MS hasn't announced one, but I'm hoping that either they or one of the 3rd party converter companies will make available batch
converters. If not, then saving from .doc format from the 2007 apps is an existing method that should work in a mixed version
environment.

Keep in mind that Word 2000 has some issues with things such as complex tables in Word and the converter won't overcome those, plus
any new features in Office 2007 would not be supported in older versions, although the content would be saved in a way that the
content will look as near the same as possible. For example the SmartArt branded, Interactive Graphics (IGX) used in Office 2007
are editable in the 2007 apps, but would be 'regular', non editable, graphics when exchanged with a prior version user.


===========Let's simpllify the question.
Can an Office 2000 user click on a file created in 2007 Office, edit &
change it and save it in 2007 format? Just as they would if it were a native
Ofiice 2000 document? >>
--
I hope this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office system products MVP

LINKS for the 2007 Office System

1. Read about it, try it, or watch the movie
the 2007 Microsoft Office system iinfo is at
http://microsoft.com/office/preview

2. Already have 2007 Office System Beta 2?
Send Microsoft your feedback (with pictures)
http://sas.office.microsoft.com/

3. Use the 2007 OfficeOnline website without Office2007

a. Install the ActiveX access control
http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=XT101650581033
b. then visit http://officebeta.iponet.net

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Simple question back: What Windows version is the user running?
I don't think that it will be that convenient, but I can't test it,
because I don't have Office 2000 around. As you seem to have Office
2000, why don't you download the beta of the compatibility pack and test
it for yourself?

Patrick Schmid