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.
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I have Windows Vista now and I cannot 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.
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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.
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:
How can I open Office 2007 files in older versions of Office? Office 2007 introduces a new XML based file format for its documents. There's a download for older versions of office to read and write the new format.
How do I know which program is used to open a particular type of file? It's not always obvious what program should be used to open certain types of files. There are clues if you know where to look and what to look for.
This file does not have a program associated with it - what does this mean and what do I do? This file does not have a program associated with it is a common error message when Windows doesn't know what program is used to open a file. I'll look at what that means, and step you can take.
Article C3145 - September 11, 2007
Dear Mr. Leo,
Please help me I just newly purchased a Dell Windows Vista Laptop and quite dissappointed of knowing that microsoft office is not there and came to know that I have to install it separately
Now my question is:
1. which version of MS office will work better for my laptop.
2.Can I download it on the Internet for free, If ever which site is better to download?
3.Or do I have to purchase and let someone download it for me?
Your answer to the above questions will be highly appreciated.
Thank you and more power.
Lily
20-Apr-2009
Leo,
I just change from old 32bit computer with XP pro to newer 64 bit computer with Vista. I have some old office 2003 files on my hard drive which i removed form old computer and have in an enclosure
I conecected old hard drive via usb to new computer and transferred files all the word documents were readable but none of the office 2003 files were.
Can I purchase and load office 2003 on my vista computer or should I load the latest version of office. if I load the latest versionof office will my 2003 files be readable in vista thru the 2007 office program?
Posted by: Mike McGrath at April 29, 2009 11:45 PMI am having a big problem trying to install Office 2003 pro addition with vista. I keep getting a message that says that I can't install the manager addition of outlook until I have first installed office 2003. But how can I do that when it is all on one disk? my computer crashed yesterday and I have to reinstall everything,but funny thing is that I had this office pro on this oomputer before it crashed and never had this problem. What is going on? Can anyone out there help me?! Help please! thanks much
Posted by: marilyn at May 12, 2009 9:09 PMI have purchased an HP laptop with Vista Premium. I have a licensed copy of Microsoft Office 2003. I am running into numerous problems. Each time I use the Microsoft Email program I have to "accept" the license agreement. Then if I send an email I have to do it again. This is also true on my excel and word program. It was worse until I downloaded a microsoft patch. Prior to the patch I had to accept the licensing every time I opened a window. Is there a fix?
Posted by: Jerry at May 18, 2009 7:01 AMI have a new Dell, Vista was on it. I installed Office 2007 and now I am trying to open some old 2003 word documents and it is not working! Help!
21-May-2009
I have a new laptop an HP pavilion 64bbit tha came with a trial of office2007. I unistalled 2oo7 tried to install my 2003 and it says cannot locate install log file. and will not install at all.i amon a netwok with 3 other pc's 2 xp and vista 64's i've not messed with one vista machine yet, out of fear. What can be done?
Posted by: Kerry Donahue at May 22, 2009 8:04 AMJust bought a Dell Studio 15 with Vista as OS. I installed Office 2003 Professional after receiving the laptop. My problem is that it takes way too long to open a document and then way to long to print it. I didn't have this problem with the same software installed on my wife's Toshiba with Vista. I uninstalled the software and re-installed it but the problem still exists. Any suggestions?
Posted by: John Mills at May 24, 2009 10:04 PMI just purchased a Dell Studio with Vista in it. I don't like Office 2007 so I purchased a copy of office 2003. Now I am having problems with Power Point. Word and Excel are ok but PPT is giving me problems. It freezes all the time and when I save the file it's about 3 times the size it should be.
Posted by: Claudia at May 28, 2009 4:45 PMI do beleive that you have actually used windows vista and office 2003 on it. Office 2003 has serious compatibility issues with the operating system. The programs will randomily crash and create unrecoverable errors in the office file itself. I do not suggest using office 2003 on Windows Vista and not using Windows Vista at all since not even Internet Explorer runs stable on it.
Posted by: Alex at June 3, 2009 8:22 PMLeo,
Posted by: Shelley at June 12, 2009 8:27 AMYou say that all versions of MS Office will work on Vista, but my husband can NOT use Outlook 2000 on Vista. He can use Excel, word, but not Outlook. Lots of stuff on the internet about what to try to do to fix but so far nothing has worked - we put 2 missing dlls into the right directory. Now when you open it, 5 seconds later it just simply closes.
Any ideas?