their always finding a way to get in my pocket !!

my new computers office program went down ...... seems it was a trail version good for One year then POOF ....... anyone have any experence with office pro 2007 ? or should I just buy the update to make my 2003 version run again ?? & whats everyone think about Vista ?? I still haven't installed it ..... I like XP it does every thing I've needed so far ........ I'm open to ideas

Stick with the old stuff until at least a service pack 2 is out for the new stuff.:D
Mircosoft is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you'll get.:sad:

I have heard of people have problems with .doc being compatable from 2007 to 2003.
So if you write a .doc in 2007 and send it to someone with 2003, they might not be able to read it.
Maybe they a update by now, who knows?

Is anyone in your family in school, the military or work for some one like HP? If so MS has a program out there that can get you the full office 2k3 suite for $20-25. They would have to be immediate family to be able to do it though.
If it is an option, I would stay away from Vista for a while longer....

If you have extra money to throw at it, go ahead and buy another copy of Microsoft Office, but if you would rather spend your money on something more worthwhile, download yourself a free copy of Open Office
http://www.openoffice.org/
and have your office software free. Open Office reads and writes Word and Excel files, and in addition to that, it knows the open documents format that makes it compatible with the rest of the world, something that Microsoft isn't likely to ever be able to do.

With 2007, Microsoft has a converted to conver from older versions. The file extension in 07 are different also, no longer .DOC files.

You could always try rolling back your date on your computer to see if it opens up again. I have a beta version of 2003 on an older computer, as long as I change the date to 2002 it works fine. :) Some program have an internal counter though and this will not work.

If you don't want to drop the cash for a new suite, download open office for free.

Big D

The compatibility problem has been fixed with a office patch from MS. Also you can set 2007 to save in the old format.

Clarify some terminology here. Office 2003 and Office 2007 have nothing to do with Windows XP; and there was a version of Office XP (briefly) that appeared when Windows XP did.

I have Office 2003 on three computers, two running Windows XP Pro, Windows XP Home, and Vista Home Premium. I have Office 2007 running on another drive in one of the PCs under Vista Business Premium.

The Office 2007 versions of Word & Excel have a different look and feel, just like the move from Office 97 to Office 2003 did. The 2007 versions of Word & Excel do default to a new file format. However, you can elect to save either program's files to the 97-2003 version when it's saved or you can set the defaults of both to save as the 97-2003 format; .doc and .xls for backward compatibility. Haven't done anything 'special' with either like some new feature, but I suspect that if you incorporate a feature only available with the new format and try to save it to the older one, it'll warn you that you'll loose that feature. It's been that way with almost every upgrade. And, Microsoft isn't the only software company this happens with.

Probably the biggest loser is the Access data base and it's been that way since MS bought the program from its original developer. Databases are inherently different and when new features are added, older versions generally can't read the new format and the database can't be saved in an older format. It's been that way with Access from day 2. This causes more problems for companies with Access databases than anything else if they are a Microsoft shop.

Finding a copy of MS Office 2003 may still be possible either though a military or education outlet. Office 2007 will require a learning curve of course, but then I imagine Open Office would too; never used it so I couldn't say. I'm fairly happy with the MS Office Suite, both versions, because I know they'll be compatible with probably 95% of the market out there and people I exchange data files with. Since I also have a Windows OS, I know the suite will be updated anytime the OS is via automatic updates.

For serious document creation I use WordPerfect. I've used it since the DOS version 4.0 and I think it does a better job of handling real documents; but that's just me.

As noted above, I have two versions of Vista, one a second drive in a desktop and one on a laptop. The laptop came with it so I'm sorta forced to learn it and the differences from XP. Personally I prefer XP (Pro or Home) but Vista has some neat features and does require more horsepower. I've only found one program so far that won't run on my Vista laptop and that may be more of a laptop issue than the program. I haven't tried the program on the Vista desktop yet so that's still open.

I'd back up all of your documents to CDs or some external drive before doing anything whether it be trying Open Office or buying and installing either version of the Office Suite. :yes:

If you have extra money to throw at it, go ahead and buy another copy of Microsoft Office, but if you would rather spend your money on something more worthwhile, download yourself a free copy of Open Office
http://www.openoffice.org/
and have your office software free. Open Office reads and writes Word and Excel files, and in addition to that, it knows the open documents format that makes it compatible with the rest of the world, something that Microsoft isn't likely to ever be able to do.

It is great for what it is, but it has no Outlook equivalent.

It is great for what it is, but it has no Outlook equivalent.

Outlook express is free, and there are plenty other email programs out there as well. Eudora is good one.