I'll now wait until MS figures how a conflict can exist with its' own product.
Oh, I'm sure they'll say you need to upgrade to Office '03. :0)
Office '97 was released in late 1996. You are running software that is nearly 8 years old on the latest operating system. Thats really pushing it where computing is concerned.
Office 97 was designed to run on Windows 95. That is 4 operating systems ago. (Win 98, Win 98 SE, Win 2k, WinXP.) I hate to be the Microsoft salesman, but its either time to upgrade Office or downgrade your operating system.
IMHO
Do they still support 97? They probably are trying to force you to upgrade to a newer version.