Is Office 2003 same as Office XP? And is it reliable?

[Andriese]

I am an Office2000Pro user on XP and wanted to upgrade to the newest Office
version.
A friend told me not to, since I need to exchange quite often documents with
customers and colleagues that are on different platforms. NT, Mac,W2000, XP.
I would be asking for trouble with the newest Office versions, he stated.

Furthermore he called Office 2003 "merely a different name for Office XP".
According to this friend, most bugs were not yet patched.
I should be extremely careful and not be using buggy stuff as I am working
with partners accross the globe on common documents. Exchanging drafts,
redlining and edit trails are often used features.
Any loss of information and incompatbility of software is unacceptable to
me.

Are his stories and worries correct? Or should I neglects this friendly
advise and safely enjoy the extra features and benefits of the newest
release?

Hans Andriese / Amsterdam
(I love the wooshing sound of deadlines, especially as they fly by...)

 

[Eric Lawrence [MSFT]]

Office2003 benefits from thousands of functionality enhancements and bug
fixes when compared to OfficeXP. Both OfficeXP and 2003 maintain great
backward compatibility; to ensure your scenarios work seamlessly in the new
version, you might want to try one of the 60 day trial copies.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/trial/default.mspx


--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Scott McDonald]

"Both OfficeXP and 2003 maintain great
backward compatibility;"

Warning, take that one with a MASSIVE grain of salt

 

[Beth Melton]

Instead of continuing to voice your opinion and thinking your Office
2003 experience is everyone's experience, why don't you post the
specific problems you are encountering?

I create documents in Office 97 - Office 2003 and open/edit them in
various versions without any difficulty so chances are you are
encountering some type of issue that can be resolve - especially since
the file format hasn't changed for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint since
Office 97. Access 2003 uses an Access 2002 file format.
--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Chris Schatte]

Same here
Open/Edit/Create documents forward/backward using
Office 2000, XP, 2003