MS Office Software

[MuleShack]

Can you have 2 different versions of office on one PC?

I recently ordered a laptop with Vista but had to get office 2002/XP for my work compatibility. Email doesn't work very good and is not supported on Vista. SO can one have a 2007 office product and a XP office product on the same PC?

The only product that would need to be backwards compatible is Access. Would 2007 save files as 2000/2002 for others to use on the XP enviornments?

[Whoaru99]

I presume so.

I have Office 2003 full suite at work along with an Access 97 install for some old databases I work with.

Here at home, Access 2007 gives me the ability to save as Access 2007, Access 2002-2003, or Access 2000.

What I've found with the newer versions is that they may save as the older version, but some of the newer features may not be backwards compatible.

Also, you can download a patch for the older, but not too old, Office systems that allow you to open the Office 2007 stuff.

[MuleShack]

If i would just upgrade, that would be cheaper?

So if I got the regular 2007 upgrade with email, word, excel and what ever the basic comes with. Would that leave my Access alone during the upgrade from my proffessional 2002 version?

Just looking at the least expensive way to go about it.

[upnorth]

Office 2007 is very different from 2003 and XP/2002. You will need to learn to do most everything over again, nothing is in the same places.

You can save your apps as older version, but if a feature wasn't there on the older app it won't be on the saved as version.

If you install a version of Office that doesn't have Access bundled in your old version will remain. We have done stuff similar in the past.

If your only issues is email and not calendaring, try the Thunderbird client from Mozilla. I have Outlook on my home PC but would rather use Thunderbird myself.

[broman]

Google "Information about running multiple versions of Office with Office 2003"

It will explain everything.

[MuleShack]

Thanks Upnorth,

I just installed and configured the Thunderbird client and set all the defaults to thunderbird.

This is the thing i was looking to get done. Now i dont need to upgrade.

Thanks for the tips.

[upnorth]

Cool, glad to hear it worked out for you.