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Is Office 2003 compatible with Widows Vista?

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Summary: Various issues are leading people to wonder if Office 2003 will work on Windows Vista. Yes, it will. We'll look at some of the possible problems.

I have Windows Vista now and I can not open Word documents attached to emails. How can I open them? Is Microsoft Office 2003 compatible with Vista?

Yes, Microsoft Office 2003 is compatible with Windows Vista.

You didn't say what happens when you try to open a document or what error message is produced, so I'll have to make some wild guesses.

Most of the confusion that I see is actually not about Windows Vista, but rather the file format changes between Office 2003 and Office 2007. The newer version now saves into a file format that can't be read by the old. However there are solutions.

Here are some of the most common things that might be going wrong:

You don't have Office installed. Some people are surprised to find that Windows Vista doesn't include Microsoft Office. They are two separate products, and if you don't have Office then you'll need to purchase and install it separately.

Your Upgrade to Windows Vista was really a fresh install. If you have Windows XP with Microsoft Office installed, an upgrade to Windows Vista should leave you with Office still installed in Vista. However, if instead you performed an install of Vista instead of an upgrade, then Windows Vista has been installed "from scratch" and you'll need to re-install all of your programs, including Microsoft Office.

"... Office 2003 and Windows Vista can certainly peacefully co-exist ..."

You've received a document in Office 2007 format, but you only have Office 2003. This will fail, unless you install the Office Compatibility Pack. This free download adds support for the newer file formats to the older versions of Office. After installing you'll be able to open these files without completely upgrading to the newer version of Office. (You can also ask the sender of the document to save the document in the older format and resend the document instead.)

The ".doc" file association has somehow been lost. There are two approaches: reinstalling Office should actually fix this for all the file types it supports, or you can repair the file association manually.

It's only email that's broken. One workaround if it's only documents in email that are causing you a problem is instead of opening the document directly from email, save it to a location on your hard drive instead. Then fire up Word and use File, Open... to locate and open the document, or locate the document in Windows Explorer and double click on it.

The bottom line, though, is that Office 2003 and Windows Vista can certainly peacefully co-exist just as Office 2007 can run on Windows XP. Neither requires an update to the other.

Related:

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Article 11836 | Posted September 11, 2007

Recent Comments

how do i install office 2003 on vista when it says error executing file this operation requires elevation

Posted by: doug fishwick at September 16, 2007 05:27 PM

I have vista xp 2007 i send a attachment to another mail addy and they cannot open it.

Please help

Jason

Posted by: jason Hobbs at October 1, 2007 11:39 AM

My 2003 installed but it always ask me to agree to the terms each time. When the 2007 trial was up I uninstalled it and now it 'sets up 2003 every time I use it. It works but I have to wait 5 minutes to use it. I have repaired and reinstalled to no avail. Hope someone has better luck than me.

Posted by: Rick Wallace at November 4, 2007 06:17 AM

Office 2003 works fine for me.
Vista Ultimate
The only thing, though, when I had office 2007 on there, I opened all my documents with it and now once it's uninstalled (too flashy and slow) and installed 2003, I can't choose winword.exe 2003 version to open my documents by default. It wont let me, sadly. Looking for a solution now.

Posted by: Dean Sinclair at December 7, 2007 06:25 PM

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You might try using the office compatability pack:
http://ask-leo.com/how_can_i_open_office_2007_files_in_older_versions_of_office.html

Leo


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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at December 8, 2007 09:34 AM

Hi Leo,

I tecently purchased a HP laptop with Windows Vista Home edition. I had Office 2007 trial version, I've uninstalled that and have office 2003 installed on that, now when i open any word or excel document, it literally takes 5-6 minutes to open. Please let me know if it's a compatibilty issue with Vista.

Regards,
Sandeep G

Posted by: Sandeep at January 13, 2008 06:25 PM

I recently purchased a new laptop with Windows Vista and a trial version of Office 2007;
I uninstalled the trial version and installed Office 2003. It works fine except it asks me to accept the terms everytime I open a document.
Any fix for this?

Posted by: John P at March 2, 2008 08:43 AM

Hi,
Why can't I design a report on the access 2003 with Vista OS? Even after saving from 2007 to 2003, the report still could not be opened.
Thanks

Posted by: Darian Marvin at May 8, 2008 04:47 AM

Hi Leo,
I install office 2003 on my new laptop with win vista, now whenever i open my documents with office there will be a prompt appeared,"Office version does not match". Although the file can be open,but whenever i open them this massage will appear. Is there anyway i can solve it?
Thanks.

Posted by: Eric at May 19, 2008 09:49 AM

I have just bought a laptop with Vista business on it. I have Office2003 running successfully on my other XP machine. When I loaded it onto the Vista machine, the following problems occur -
1. I use a program called ShareO to share my calendar, contacts etc between the machines. This will not operate successfully on the Vista machine (I am in the middle of discussions with their support about this.)
2. I also notice small glitches in Office in other areas. If I try to change the default opening page in Outlook say from Calendar to Inbox, the changes are not saved & it reverts to the calendar.
3. When right clicking on Contacts & opening Properties, the message comes up that the Inbox assistant is not available.
4. I cannot use the import feature in Outlook to import a pst file.

I have the latest upgrades for Office 2003. These small things are frustrating and suggest to me that Outlook 2003 is not completely compatible with Vista. I have 2 choices - upgrade to Office 2007 or downgrade from Vista to XP Professional (the discs to do this came with the machine). What do you think I should do?

Posted by: Bob at June 2, 2008 09:12 PM

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