by Darryl Brooks

Created on: February 05, 2009

Like most software companies, Microsoft releases periodic new releases of its products, and their Office suite is no exception. Some of these are minor and some are major releases. As they release new versions of Office for the most part, your existing version of Office will be compatible. But once every ten years or so, they begin to phase out older versions and a new release will no longer be compatible with older versions. This happened with the 1997 release, and once again with Office 2007.

Now, mort than a year after its initial release, the new version is starting to become more more popular. It is also may be the only choice if you are buying the software pre-installed on a new computer. This means that users with Office 2003 are just now starting to get more and more documents that they can't open. These can be identified by the x on the end of the file extension. For instance, .doc files will be .docx files, and .xls files will be .xlsx files.

One way to work around the problem is to ask the person that sent you the file to save it as an Office 2003 file. This works, but isn't very convenient, and if you are working in a business environment this may not be the best way to go about it. So now, you are stuck with a file, maybe an important file, that you can't open.

Does this mean you need to rush out and spend $100-$300 on an upgrade? Not necessarily. If you don't need the new functionality and features of the new version, there is a work around. Microsoft has released a patch so that Office 2003 can read and open Office 2007 files. The current URL is

microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=941 b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displayLang=en

If that doesn't work, search on office compatibility in the search window. You may get a pop-up asking if you want to try the new beta version. Click No thanks. In either case, click the download button. The site tells you to hit run, but it's a good idea to hit save instead. This is usually quicker, and you have the file in case it needs to be reinstalled.

So either click Run in the first window, or click Run when the download completes. Either way, the program installs itself. At some point, it will ask you to agree to the licensing agreement. Click the check box and click continue or accept. A few seconds later, you will get an installation complete button and you are all done.

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