Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Microsoft Office is very good about installing itself over older versions and, in fact, there is a very good reason to let it be in charge of the upgrade operation.
I wish to replace Office Pro '97 with Office Pro 2010. Is it essential to uninstall the 1997 version first? I'm running on Microsoft Windows XP, Service Pack 3, on a Pentium 4, 3 GHz, 500 MB of RAM and using Internet Explorer.
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In this excerpt from Answercast #12, I give my recommendation on the steps to take in upgrading Microsoft Office in a way that will help you keep your settings.
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Should I uninstall first?
Nope. You do not need to uninstall it: and in fact, I recommend that you don't.
Microsoft Office is actually very good about upgrading.
Preserve your old settings
If you have a previous version of Microsoft Office installed (pretty much whatever version), the newer version will take care to not only install the new software, but also preserve all of your settings and upgrade them as necessary to whatever the new format might be.
The only thing it won't do, of course, is update the file format of your documents. That's okay because newer versions of Office will all open the older file formats that Office '97 used.
So, no, don't uninstall it first.
I recommend that you just install over the top of it and everything should work just fine.
End of Answercast #12 Back to - Audio Segment
Article C5262 - April 26, 2012 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.