Upgrading to Microsoft Word 2003, compatability issues with Word 9

[dharmadata]

Hi,

I've had Microsoft Word 97 for 7 or 8 years and it's worked fine for me.
Recently, my wife purchased a laptop with Microsoft Office/Word 2003
preinstalled. I decided to load the program to see what new features Word had
developed.

Of course, it asked me to register the product and when I declined to do so,
knowing that I still needed to purchase it if I wanted to keep it functional,
a message said I could acccess the program 50 times before it would become
nonfunctional.

Sometime during this time, I noticed that all the icons associated with
various Word files I had created over the years (several hundred...or more
than a thousand?) had changed from the 97 icon to the 03 icon.

Today, I decided that I would remove the Office 2003 software from my
computer. I did and then reinstalled 97 - or tried to - from the original
Microsoft Works Suite 99 I had purchased ( a collection of 5 discs).
Microsoft Word is on Disc 1 with a bunch of other stuff.

I notice that Word 97 shows up again in my list of programs. However, the
file icons did not revert to the 97 icon, but instead changed to something
which looks unfamiliar.

When I try to open up any of these old Word files, I get an error message
which says: "This file does not have a program associated with it for
performing this action. Create an association in the Folder Options control
panel."

So, I went to the Folder Options in Control Panel, and added .doc to the
list, but that didn't seem to make any difference.

Furthermore, when I try to open up the Word 97, nothing happens. Maybe I
haven't reinstalled it correctly, or something else is going on I don't know
about.

I went to my external hard drive to see if I could open those Word files,
but that doesn't work either. Or, now, as I've continued to try this
solution, after clicking on the Word Icon to open the program, it looks like
a Word document has opened, but when I place the cursor inside the document,
the hour glass goes to sleep, nothing happens, and later, it tells me the
progam is not responding.

So how do I get my files back?

Do I need to now upgrade to 2003?
Have I not reinstalled 97 correctly? Was I supposed to install more than
just Word 97 to make that work?

Thanks for your help. Feeling a bit concerned at the moment,

Jordan

 

[dharmadata]

Hi, problem solved. I reinstalled the Word 97 CD and then when I opened it, I
clicked on the little wizard that pops up - saying I wanted to use Word!
Sometimes you just have to keep trying. Now all my old documents open. By the
way, should I plunk out the bucks to get Word 2003, is it really going to do
anything better besides new colors, bells and whistles?

thanks,

Jordan

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you got a message about 50 free uses, this was a full install of Office
2003 not a trial version (which is date-limited). You should have chosen to
activate it (registering is something different and is entirely optional).
Uninstalling Word 2003 and reinstalling Word 97 should have left your file
associations intact (the icon is irrelevant), but reregistering Word should
have reestablished the file association in the Registry in any case; see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ReRegisterWord.htm