Excel 2004 Compatibility

[Peter]

Here's a simple question the MS support center couldn't answer -
I have Office v.X. Looks like Excel is the only thing I want to upgrade. If I
upgrade Excel to 2004, will the rest of Office v.X be compatible? Thanks.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Here's a simple question the MS support center couldn't answer -
I have Office v.X. Looks like Excel is the only thing I want to upgrade. If I
upgrade Excel to 2004, will the rest of Office v.X be compatible? Thanks.

Yes - you can run 2004 and v.X at the same time.

You obviously won't have the new Office functions based on other Apps
(like Project Center). I don't know if the Office-wide features like
Office Scrapbook or Compatibility checker will work.

 

[Kristina Conceicao]

Yes - you can run 2004 and v.X at the same time.

I have recently been told by Microsoft that they do not recommend
running older versions of Office with 2004.

To make a long story short, I am having a problem where addins that have
been activated "deactivate" themselves after quitting Excel. MS said
they could recreate this ONLY if they had multiple versions of Office
installed (I had 98, X and 2004 installed, but not running, at the same
time). Once they removed all prior versions, they claimed the problem
went away, and advised that only Office 2004 should be installed.
(However, I am still having the problem, even after removing the other
versions. I also see the problem on the three other machines that we
upgraded.)

Personally, I don't think that running multiple versions has anything to
do with my problem, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Who knows
what else might be "caused" by running mult versions!

Kristina

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Personally, I don't think that running multiple versions has anything to
do with my problem, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Who knows
what else might be "caused" by running mult versions!

Who at Microsoft told you this? I'm not disputing it, but MS is a large
corporation...

I've been running Office X and Office 2004 together for a long time
without seeing any problems, but I'm also fairly careful in cleaning out
preferences and plist files.

 

[Kristina Conceicao]

Who at Microsoft told you this? I'm not disputing it, but MS is a large
corporation...

The short answer is a "Microsoft Escalation Coordinator for Excel" (I
don't know if it's PC to post a name, but I do have a name and contact
info). I was directed to him when I called the 800 number with
questions about VBE/Excel 2004. He signs his emails as an "MCSD,
MSDBA". He tries hard, but he's not a mac guy at all (and freely admits
this). He's been getting mac advice from other staff there. It's
difficult to find support for 2004. Call the 800# and they say all free
support is on the website. Last I looked, all the stuff that's there is
for X and below, and as any subscriber to this newsgroup knows, clearly
things are quite different in 2004!

The longer story is that I've been able to consistently reproduce this
problem on four machines. The last thing they told me was that they
can't reproduce it on a "clean machine", and therefore can't list it as
a bug. They've defined a clean machine as one that only contains Office
2004; no prior versions. Then they told me that it's not recommended to
have more than one version of Office installed; do so "at your own
risk". Finally, they recommended that I perform a clean install of the
OS, as "something there must be interfering with 2004". I think that's
a bit extreme. Funny how nothing's interfering with 98 or X. Don't the
MS support people run multiple versions of Office?

I've been running Office X and Office 2004 together for a long time
without seeing any problems, but I'm also fairly careful in cleaning out
preferences and plist files.

Both MS and I have tried that but it doesn't seem to help (at least, not
on a "dirty" machine . They've admitted to a problem with the
Analysis Toolpak: it loads itself, and if you then check it off via
Tools: Addins, it loads a second time and "deactivates" other addins
(although they'll stay checked off in the Addins dialog). However, this
isn't the cause. You can drag the AT folder to your desktop so it won't
load itself. Then activate any three addins, and quit Excel. When you
log back in, they're checked off in Tools: Addins, but they're not
actually loaded (you can see that in the VBE). I'd be curious as to
whether or not you've seen this problem.

The workaround seems to be to put the addins in the Startup folder (this
even "fixes" the Analysis Toolpak problem). A co-worker of mine came up
with this solution.

Thanks for listening to me ramble!

Kristina

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Kristina,

I also have v.X and 2004 installed on the same machine but have not had
any troubles with add-ins becoming confused between versions.

There are some things I am curious about in your installation. Did you
install v.X or any of its updates after you installed 2004? MacOS is
supposed to remember what program to use based upon the most recent
install. If you install or update v.X after installing 2004 it's
possible MacOS is redirecting the add-ins to v.X instead of 2004.

Similarly, do you make a separate copy of the add-ins, or are v.X and
2004 trying to access the exact same files?

-Jim

 

[Kristina Conceicao]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your response.

I also have v.X and 2004 installed on the same machine but have not had
any troubles with add-ins becoming confused between versions.

They don't seem to be confused between versions. Everything's fine in
98 (via Classic) and X. It's only 2004 that has the problem, which is
that the addins don't load the next time you launch Excel, even though
they remain checked off in Tools: Addins. MS reproduced the problem
many times on a machine with mult versions of Office. Then, when they
removed all versions except 2004 and trashed prefs/plist, they didn't
see the problem any more. That's when they told me "run multiple
versions at your own risk". I tried this but continued to see the problem.

There are some things I am curious about in your installation. Did you
install v.X or any of its updates after you installed 2004?

No. I have a dual boot eMac running OS 10.3.4. It had Office 98
installed. I installed Office X and ran both versions for many months
(sometimes simultaneously). Then I added 2004 (via the upgrade CD). My
second machine is a dual boot cube. It had Office 98, and I upgraded to
2004. I've never attempted to run 2004 and another version simultaneously.

MacOS is supposed to remember what program to use based upon the most
recent install. If you install or update v.X after installing 2004 it's
possible MacOS is redirecting the add-ins to v.X instead of 2004.

It is remembering the correct path to the addins (which I can see via
Tools: Addins). They simply don't load unless you reselect them again
(via the Select button). And then they stay loaded for that session only.

Similarly, do you make a separate copy of the add-ins, or are v.X and
2004 trying to access the exact same files?

I have separate copies of the addins for all three versions of Office.
I have replicated this problem using only addins that ship. However, I
do also have some custom addins, and I've placed copies of these in all
three Addins folders.

Perhaps the issue lies with the fact that I'm running on dual-boot
machines? I last asked MS to make sure that they were doing the same,
but I haven't heard back from them.

We have about 70 users here currently running Office 98. My collegue
and I were in the process of evaluating Office X (to see if there were
any compatibility with our custom VBA apps) when we ran into several
bugs. We decided to evaluate 2004 instead, since some posts seemed to
indicate that the bugs we saw in X were fixed. Only IT is running OS X,
but everyone else will be switching over sometime this year. We have to
decide if we should run 98 via Classic or upgrade to 2004. So far we're
not impressed with 2004 (too buggy), and are leaning towards sticking
with 98 for a while.

Thanks very much for your help!

Kristina