Remove Compatibility Pack/SP1 Office 2007

[Cyndical]

As much as I would like all of my clients to upgrade their hardware and
software regularly, they don't for various reasons that I'm sure everyone is
familiar with. I, however, must keep all 3 recent versions of Office on my
machine (2000-2007) because I can't force my clients to use only one version.

When I installed the Compatibility Pack, I was dismayed to see that one of
its "features" is that it will override all other versions of PowerPoint on
your machine and only open 2007. This does not work for me, as the majority
of my clients have not upgraded yet and it's annoying to be continually
closing 2007, and using Open in XP to browse to my files.

Therefore, when I bought my upgrade (I had been playing around with the
Beta), I made sure that I didn't install this Compatibility Pack, only to
find out that it's part of SP1, so now every time I double click to open a
..ppt, I'm taken to a program that I don't want to be taken to.

The only way I've found to disable this is to reinstall XP afterwards (which
seems to override the compatibility settings) but there's got to be a better
solution. I mean, seriously, there's a new extension on these files, do we
really need all this compatibility pack stuff? How hard can it be to save
down, the way it's always been done? While I have AdobeCS3, to this day I
still save Illustrator files down to version 10 when I send it out to make
sure that other people can open it. And yes, I did try to use Associations to
change which program opens what but PowerPoint has the *same* name for both
the XP and 2007 versions (POWERPNT.EXE), so it doesn't work (or I'm doing it
wrong, somehow, but using the same technique I was able to change .png to
open in Photoshop).

If anyone has a better suggestion on this, I'm all ears. I will, however, be
reinstalling OfficeXP in the meantime so that I can get some work done.

 

[Cyndical]

Well, it turns out I was wrong.

I repaired my OfficeXP installation and everything was working fine, until I
opened an Excel document, which opened Excel07 and repaired my Office07
installation (for reasons unknown and unspecified) and reverted the whole
mess right back again.

So, I decided to uninstall SP1. Other Windows updates show up in Vista's
Program and Features/Installed Updates list and, when you click on them, you
get options like Uninstall. Not SP1.

No other choice, then, uninstall Office07. SP1 is now gone. I will reinstall
07 and be careful to not reinstall SP1. Unless it just automatically comes
back somehow (Gawd I hope not) when I reinstall.

At this rate, I'm going to have to buy another machine in order to keep the
versions apart.

 

[Lucy Thomson]

Hi

AFAIK this is not related to the compatability pack - that just allows older
versions to open 2007 files.

To have files open in 2002 (XP) when double clicked try this (I haven't
tried it myself but it seems to have worked for others):
Go to start Run and type with quotes
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE10\POWERpnt.exe /regserve"

BTW you can have more than one version of PowerPoint open at one time - I
often work with 2007 and 2003 both open.

Hope that helps

Lucy

 

[Echo S]

I don't think it's got anything to do with the compat pack, but I admit I'm
not positive about that.

Anyway, there may be a registry hack for this.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928091 This mentions Word's autoregister,
but I don't see anything about PPT, bummer. Still, there may be ideas there
for you.

What about using a virtual machine for one of the Office versions?

 

[Cyndical]

A new extension and altogether different contents in the file itself.

You need the compat pack if you want to be able to open 2007 files in earlier
versions of PPT.

Which will remove all the editing functionality of them, thereby making them
essentially useless, I assume. I ran a small test today on what happens when
you save down, and right now it converts all SmartArt etc. to med-res
(150ppi) transparent PNG files. This would be good if you want the 3d look or
shadow in XP and can't dupe it in Photoshop easily. Actually, now that I
think about it, it's way easier, do your chart in XP, save the single slide,
open in 07 colour/drop shadow/3D your boxes, save the slide, bring it back
into XP, Bob's yer uncle. It would also be good for clients who haven't
upgraded, want the 07 features and need to see what it's like -- with the
added bonus that they can't change their slides themselves >devilish grin<
So, not much more different than saving to PDF or exporting all slides as
images (which I currently have to do for some project manager clients who are
on Macs, yet their clients are on PCs).

Right now, when I open a .pptx, it opens 07, and when I double click a .ppt,
it opens XP -- which is how I likes it -- all is good in my little PPT World.
A review of the Control Panel->Installed Updates shows that the only 07
update I have currently installed is PowerPoint Viewer 2007 SP1, not the
dreaded regular SP1.

I guess I'm going to have to run some tests to see if you can still save
down if you have a fresh install (no upgrades) versus what happens after SP1.
Call me paranoid, but I'm not 100% convinced that all the residue of that
ServicePack is gone, considering that I can save a file in 07 as 07 only and
then I can open it up in XP, without going through that saving
down/Compatibility check thing. hmm...

 

[Echo S]

Hope this saves some time then:

You don't need 2007 SP1 to back-save to 97-2003 format. That's built into
the
original release of the product.

But if you can open a PPTX in 2003 or earlier, you must have the
compatibility
pack installed. The service pack, so far as I know, doesn't include the
compatibility pack. (Sombody will jump on me with both feet in a few
minutes if
I'm wrong. Echo? Do I need to duck?)

No need to duck...or even to walk pigeon-toed. SP1 for Office 2007 does not
include the compatibility pack.