Microsoft Broke Office 2003 - On Purpose
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It is absolutely bewildering. If you are an Office 2003 user, you may have problems accessing older files. Microsoft did this, on purpose, with SP3:
“Microsoft Corp. deliberately broke access to older files, including many generated by its own products, to step up security with the newest Office 2003 service pack, a company evangelist said yesterday.”
link: Office 2003 SP3 blocks old file formats
The solution causes a whole set of new problems. Microsoft has posted a ‘fix’ whereby the user has to make registry changes. However, there are a multitude of people who are uncomfortable making any changes in the registry. Microsoft is exposing these people to a additional problems. Needless to say, it is easy to make a registry error, especially for people for whom the registry is ‘foreign territory’. It is no wonder that Microsoft generates such belligerence.
Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster
One Comment
dabrace1984
January 5th, 2008
at 11:58pm
When I read about this on Slashdot, then c|net followed by the New York Times, my jaw nearly hit the floor. The moment Office 2003 Service Pack 3 was available in September, I started installing it for all of my users that were still running Office 2003. I personally am an Office 2007 for PC and Office 2004 for Mac user and I am now up the creek when I create documents on my Mac until after Microsoft releases Office 2008 for mac at MacWorld in the coming weeks.