two office versions on same machine

[hansiman]

for debuggin' is it possible to install both office 2003 and office
2000 on the same machine? any things to consider?

/morten

 

[Jonathan West]

for debuggin' is it possible to install both office 2003 and office
2000 on the same machine? any things to consider?

You can install multiple versions of Office on the same machine (except for
Outlook, which can *only* have one version installed), but I would recommend
against it. Testing & debugging should be done in an environment that is
representative of the conditions under which customers will use the product.
That means one version only on a machine.

If you have an MSDN subscription, you can download Virtual PC from the
subscriber downloads area. (alternatively you can purchase it.) This aill
allow you to run "virtual" macines on your PC, each with its own version of
Windows and Office, and each totally separated from all the others. For
testing I have several different combinations of Office an Windows on
various virtual machines. You need to ensure that your PC has plenty of hard
disk space to take the extra copies of Windows, and you should have enough
RAM installed to ensure that you can allocate sufficient to the virtual
machine. On my test machine, I have 512Mb of RAM, and I have my virtual
machines set up so they think that have 128Mb or 256Mb.

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Hi Jonathan,

disk space to take the extra copies of Windows, and you should have enough
RAM installed to ensure that you can allocate sufficient to the virtual
machine. On my test machine, I have 512Mb of RAM, and I have my virtual
machines set up so they think that have 128Mb or 256Mb.

Why is this necessary? Why must each VM "thinks" that you have less RAM than
you actually do? I use PowerQuest and this is not necessary, probably that
PowerQuest and Virtual PC are different.

Is it because with Virtual PC you can switch from one OS to the other " at
the flick of a switch" and not have to reboot?

Anyone out here knows of the difference between PowerQuest and Vrtual PC?

Thanks.

--
Cheers!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org

 

[Jonathan West]

Hi Jonathan,

Why is this necessary? Why must each VM "thinks" that you have less RAM than
you actually do? I use PowerQuest and this is not necessary, probably that
PowerQuest and Virtual PC are different.

Yes, the vitrual machines are running as applications on the main machine.
You need enough RAM for the VM to work, and enough left over for the host OS
to keep going.

Is it because with Virtual PC you can switch from one OS to the other " at
the flick of a switch" and not have to reboot?

Exactly so.

Anyone out here knows of the difference between PowerQuest and Vrtual PC?

If you mean PowerQuest Partition Magic, then I have used both, and now much
prefer Virtual PC because it is much easier to set up additional
configuations, and start them up and close them down without rebooting the
machine. There is also a facility in VPC for restoring the virtual machine
to its clean condition on shutdown, i.e. discarding all changes made to the
disk during the session.

 

[Tom Winter]

If you are using VB6, be careful about what version of the Office apps you
reference. Always reference the OLDEST version that you want to support.
Your code will NOT support older versions. Here's a good article on it:
INFO: Writing Automation Clients for Multiple Office Versions
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;244167

I have Word 6.0, Word 95, Word 97, Word 2000 and Word 2003 all on the same
machine and they work fine. The only oddity is that after using some other
version, Word 2000 and later always "repair" themselves real quick before
starting.

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Thanks Jonathan,

Yes, I did mean PowerQuest Partition magic and Boot magic.

I can't wait to switch the VPC, now, it is a real pain when I am working on
2002 and a client for whom I did some work on 2000 calls... I have to
reboot, tell my client, "Hold on, I'll be right with you..." and chit chat
will it is rebooting...

But, do you think it will be easy to switch form PQ to VPC, or should I just
backup everything, and reformat my disk? Will VPC smoothly take over the
running of the Boot Manager from PQ?

Thanks.
--
Cheers!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org

 

[Jonathan West]

Thanks Jonathan,

Yes, I did mean PowerQuest Partition magic and Boot magic.

I can't wait to switch the VPC, now, it is a real pain when I am working on
2002 and a client for whom I did some work on 2000 calls... I have to
reboot, tell my client, "Hold on, I'll be right with you..." and chit chat
will it is rebooting...

I know that feeling!

But, do you think it will be easy to switch form PQ to VPC, or should I just
backup everything, and reformat my disk?

I would recommend you proceed as follows.

1. Backup everything & reformat.
2. Install whichever OS & software you want for your main machine
3. Restore files as necessary
4. Install VPC
5. Create a virtual machine for each OS you want to use for the basis of
testing. Put each one on a separate vitual disk.
6. For each OS, copy the virtual disk for each version of Office you want to
install.
7. Create a separate virtual machine for each OS/Office combination, each
pointing to its own virtual disk, and install Office

Will VPC smoothly take over the
running of the Boot Manager from PQ?

No, VPC works in a completely different way. Each virtual machine operates
as an application under Windows on the host machine. So there is no
rebooting when you start a new virtual machine.

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Hi Jonathan,

I guess the easiest will be to buy a bigger/better hard disk (Which I need
anyway), install it as the master and have the current one become a slave.
Install everything as you so nicely outlined on the new master, copy the
data from the new slave (the current master) to the new master and then
reformat the "new" slave and finally copy the data back to the slave form
the master.

Am I making any sense?

Thanks again.

--
Cheers!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org

 

[Jonathan West]

Hi Jonathan,

I guess the easiest will be to buy a bigger/better hard disk (Which I need
anyway), install it as the master and have the current one become a slave.
Install everything as you so nicely outlined on the new master, copy the
data from the new slave (the current master) to the new master and then
reformat the "new" slave and finally copy the data back to the slave form
the master.

Am I making any sense?

Yes, perfect sense. When working out disk space requirements, assume that
each virtual disk will be a file that is up to 3Gb in size. By the way, your
main machine and its C drive can be seen by the virtual machines as if it is
another computer on the newtaork, so there is usually no need to copy large
amounts of data into the virtual disks.