# Office 97 To Vista



## IN THE DARK (Apr 21, 2007)

I just bought a new Vista computer & I'm afraid that was a big mistake. I'm computer literate to some extent, but now I'm not so sure. Windows 97 DLd OK, but the HELP function doesn't work. I would like it all to work, but trying to find the answer in a sea of computer questions boggles my mind. If anyone out there could reassure me that my program will function properly, I'd so much appreciate it. Is there something I overlooked, or maybe I won't need the HELP function any longer. I also found out my Quickbooks Pro 2005 will only work up to some degree. I certainly do not want to shell out a huge amount of money for programs I already have & are quite useable.

I'd appreciate an e-mail in case I don't get back to this forum Thank you so much.
[email protected]


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## Zack Barresse (Jul 25, 2004)

Hi there, welcome to the board!

Office 97 is no longer supported by Microsoft. Neither is Office 2000. There are going to be things that do not work as Vista was designed to run on Office 2002 or higher. Not all applications are compatible with Windows Vista. If you're worried about it, you should check with the manufacturer prior to upgrading. An upgrade (if you want Office) should be to 2003 or higher.

For any application you use with Vista you should check for either version or driver updates. Not all peripherals will work either. Some manufacturers are not releasing drivers or updates for the Vista OS; some are slowly releasing them as time goes by [for more and more products].

Oh, and you may want to edit your post and take your email address out, or write it out in plain text. Bots peruse these boards and will pick it up in a keyword search, which means you may get spam mail for it.


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## IN THE DARK (Apr 21, 2007)

Thanks for the info & advice. I really appreciate it, & I will be more careful in the future!


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## slurpee55 (Oct 20, 2004)

Sadly, my son works for Microsoft - he was doing support for Vista and was never so happy as the day he got promoted to a research team - now he just has to answer the odd question for support staff. There are a lot of problems with drivers, etc. even coming from XP - I had 97 and elected to get XP (while I still could) when I got a new PC, largely on his advice.


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## Jack1000 (Feb 4, 2001)

slurpee55 said:


> Sadly, my son works for Microsoft - he was doing support for Vista and was never so happy as the day he got promoted to a research team - now he just has to answer the odd question for support staff. There are a lot of problems with drivers, etc. even coming from XP - I had 97 and elected to get XP (while I still could) when I got a new PC, largely on his advice.


I'll say this forever,

While Office can be a good program, for the home user, it's way overpriced for what you get. To have to spend almost $250-$400 for upgrades on the low end or updates on the high end every 3-4 years when MS comes out with a new version just doesn't make much sense for sitting at home writing papers and reports for school or letters to friends and family. MS has free file-converters on line and viewers that can even help you open up and print documents created with the new formats that the older versions can read. I have that for Office 97, and I also use Word Perfect 12 for writing. Word Processing is word processing at least for the home user. There are excellent and even FREE alternatives to MS Office, such as Open Office: www.openoffice.org

However, if you use Office and are on Vista you should have Office 2003 or higher because of the other versions being too old. If you are working for a business or involved, you might be able to get a discount. Maybe you could get a deal from your son on Office 2007. You'll have the latest version but be prepared for a new learning experience with the new Ribbon Bars, Menus, and icon placements! Anything below Office 2003 is too old technology wise to work with Vista.

Jack


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## slurpee55 (Oct 20, 2004)

Oh, I have 2003, and yes, my son gets deals. Frankly, however, most of the businesses I deal with have yet to get 2007, and while I know 2007 can save to earlier versions, I just don't have the need for it, so I will only get it when that arises. And while you are right about anything older than 2003 being too old (lack of support for one thing) and I do like OO, I still deal with a number of businesses that use 97....


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## Zack Barresse (Jul 25, 2004)

Office 2003 is not the earliest version that will work and still be supported. Office XP will work as well. Office 2000 will work, although there are some reported issues that may not work. I don't know if any of the issues have been confirmed or duplicated, but some have been posted around. But Office XP (2002) will in fact work with Vista and is supported currently [still] by Microsoft.


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## sover_99 (Apr 24, 2007)

Office XP is extremly unstable with Vista. Access crashes indiscriminatley and Outlook is a non starter, not supported at all. WinHelp32.exe has also been removed but can be downloaded from MS, this will fix most Help features for your older programs.

There is no good reason for Office XP not to be supported in Vista as the changes to 2003 were minimal. It is more a case of forcing an upgrade on consumers who didn't upgrade to 2003. Personally I run Access 2000, XP, 2003 and now 2007. XP has always been the most stable runtime solution and is now to be fazed out. The 2007 Runtime has still to be released. Thanks again, BG! :down:


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## Zack Barresse (Jul 25, 2004)

I have had much different results with Office 2002. I will uninstall and try again though.

And there is no "forcing an upgrade". If you don't want to upgrade, don't. It's that simple. If you want to upgrade, make sure everything works together as it tells you (in the requirements). Simple.

As far as the most stable version of Office (on a Win XP OS), it's generally considered to be Office 2000 still.


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## LitomoSilver (Feb 20, 2005)

Or better yet, use OpenOffice. It's free...and should work with Vista. IF not...well...you'll have to wait for them to get right on that.


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## sover_99 (Apr 24, 2007)

The reference to the most 'stable version' was the Access runtime and not the Office suite. The runtime for Access 2000 was incredibly unstable. As for forcing an upgrade, maybe I should have worded it differently but there is still no reason for Access XP not to be supported by Vista other than to 'encourage' an upgrade. You actually state that Vista is designed for 2002 and up but it quite clearly advises an upgrade to 2003 on it's many crashes when running Access XP and states that this version of Access is not supported. There is nothing in the requirements for Vista to indicate which Office suite is compatible and it should be a 'fair assumption' that any suite costing nearly $2000 (as the developer edition did) and is only 5 years old should be supported by an operating system built by the same issuing company. There are similar issues with VS. Net 2003.
On a separate note there are still issues with Outlook 2007 running in Vista and many users are switching back to 2003. which just about says it all about checking the 'requirements'.

Just as withdrawing the inclusion of WinHelp32.exe but still packing WinHelp16.exe makes no sense at all and will cost many ISVs a lot time and money.

This all reads very badly but as a fan of MS and a member of the Partner Program I do feel let down by the release of Vista with it's many shortcomings and so much shortsightedness when it comes to actually supporting developers. The delay in releasing the Access 2007 runtime and then the withdrawal of the download within 24 hours sums up everything that is bad about Vista. It has been rushed out with more thought to marketing than getting it right.


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## Zack Barresse (Jul 25, 2004)

Hi there,



sover_99 said:


> On a separate note there are still issues with Outlook 2007 running in Vista and many users are switching back to 2003.


Like what?


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## slurpee55 (Oct 20, 2004)

Hi Zack,

The biggest problem I have heard and read of regarding Outlook '07 is that it spends an inordinate amount of time (and consumes a lot of resources) indexing. Others are large .pst files and...well, here are a few links: http://www.roundtripsolutions.com/b...em-with-outlook-2007-email-receive-is-broken/
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/?p=54
http://pauked.com/blog/?p=211
and here is a MS discussion group blog with fixes
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...en-us-office&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1


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## sover_99 (Apr 24, 2007)

There are far too many references to list but a simple google of 'Outlook 2007 slow' will give you a good idea. This is where I started as it is ridiculously slow almost to be unusable. It often hangs so long as to present a not responding message although it will come through eventually. All add-ins as far as possible are disabled and the RSS feeds have been removed. Pst file has been compacted and is down to just over 40mb. I have yet to see any advantages of OL 2007 over XP but this maybe because I avoid using it due to its poor performance. I would go back to XP but this is not supported by Vista. As for recommending it to clients, I think that is a long way off & will require major hardware upgrades for many.


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## slurpee55 (Oct 20, 2004)

Sadly sover, I agree - I really was hoping Visat and Office 2007 would be at least decent - I need a new PC, but I am going to hold off buying one for some time now. Any clients of mine, I am still recommending XP.


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

The big limitation with OpenOffice is that there is no comparable e-mail client for Outlook. There are other third party programs like Thunderbird which are reasonably good. Just none so far that do all what Outlook does.


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