Replies

I've been reading farther and it looks as if MS did deliberately block some older file formats but later ones are still active. The problem is changing ANY access to a file format with an automatic update without notifying the user of the change. I have clients who have historical files in Windows Word formats prior to 6.0... which are now blocked IF they upgrade to the SP3 for Office 2003.

"All Word files that have a version number that is less than but not equal to
Word 6.0 for Windows are blocked from opening.

It appears that Microsoft has revised its page... and corrected some of the confusion.

The default setting to allow opening Word files is 101... the number for MS Word 6.0. For Mac users, all of the Word for Mac files, except Word for Mac 4.x and Word for Mac 5.x, have version numbers greater than 101... and are therefore openable.

10 posted on 01/07/2008 1:23:45 AM PST by Swordmaker (We can fix this, but you're gonna need a butter knife, a roll of duct tape, and a car battery.)

Good reason to have multiple machines at multiple levels.
I have a dust covered laptop somewhere that has WIN 3.1 on it.

12 posted on 01/07/2008 1:34:25 AM PST by djf (...and dying in your bed, many years from now, did you donate to FR?)

> I've been reading farther and it looks as if MS did deliberately block some older file formats but later ones are still active.

Okay, makes sense.

> The problem is changing ANY access to a file format with an automatic update without notifying the user of the change.

Oh, agreed 100%.

> I have clients who have historical files in Windows Word formats prior to 6.0... which are now blocked IF they upgrade to the SP3 for Office 2003.

I wonder, if you open a very old, blocked document in a old but non-blocked version, and re-save, can it then be opened by Office 2003/SP3? I keep working installations of Office 2000 and OpenOffice around for just these sorts of reasons... Opening very old docs in the latest versions can corrupt the docs under some circumstances.

Back-compatibility is a bitch.

> I think it should be pointed out that Microsoft is not alone in this approach. Apple has made it almost impossible to open old documents saved in AppleWorks of ClarisWorks in Pages...

That's a valid point.

13 posted on 01/07/2008 1:36:21 AM PST by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)

$ounds like an opportunity for $omeone to create a commercial GUI application for changing the$e regi$try $etting$! :)

37 posted on 01/07/2008 8:08:20 AM PST by papasmurf (I'm voting for FRed, even if I have to write him in.)

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