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January 3, 2008 7:21 AM PST
Office 2003 update blocks older file formats
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Office 2003 Service Pack 3, which was made available in September, blocks a lengthy list of word-processing file formats, including Word 6.0 and Word 97 for Windows, and Word 2004 for Macintosh. It also blocks older versions of Excel, PowerPoint, Lotus Notes, Corel Quattro spreadsheet, and Corel Draw graphics package.
On releasing the service pack, Microsoft said one of its main benefits was that it would make it easier to interoperate with Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista, and its latest productivity suite, Office 2007. The older file formats that are now blocked are in decreasing day-to-day use, but the blocking of them will make retrieval of archived material more difficult.
The changes were revealed in a Microsoft support document, which was uploaded to its site in December. Users were given no warning of the effects when they downloaded SP3.
In the support document, Microsoft said SP3 blocked access to those formats because they were less secure than newer versions. "By default, these file formats are blocked because they are less secure. They may pose a risk to you," it said.
Microsoft released details of a work-around to restore access. The work-around requires changes to the registry, which could render a PC unusable if carried out incorrectly.
The work-around was branded by one critic on tech Web site Slashdot as "mind-bogglingly complex."
Other users responded negatively to the change. A system administrator at a U.K. university, who asked not to be named, called it "a money-making exercise," adding that it would cause a problem to the central IT resource not to have access to some older file formats but that the effect would be greater on other less "progressive" departments within the university.
Microsoft could offer no comment at the time of writing on why it had blocked access to the file formats.
Richard Thurston of ZDNet UK reported from London.
See more CNET content tagged:
Microsoft Office 2003, productivity suite, Corel Corp., Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word
184 comments
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This is yet another example of MS needing to resort to sleazy tactics to force upgrades without looking at the big picture.
It is also a poignant reminder why open standards are necessary. Your data is held hostage at the whims of a giant corporation whose only means of making more money is to attempt to force upgrades.
Convert all your files, old and new to ODF and ditch the lock-in and forced upgrades, along with the massive amounts of security risk.
Office 2007 is one of the BEST products I have ever used, and there is no 'lock-in' and 'forced upgrades' at all, even in Vista you can STILL TURN OFF AUTOMATIC UPDATES!
One online source states:
"A group formed to promote the OpenDocument Format has abandoned ODF in favour of a rival format from the W3C,..."
No, I don't want to convert all of my Microsoft files to an abandoned, obsolete, format.
There is no reason for MS to drop support for their older formats
other than their desire to force their customers to upgrade to
their latest software.
Most business users don't use any feature of MS Office that
aren't available in Office 97 and therefore never need to
upgrade. That says a lot about the quality of MS software but
doesn't do anything for their sales. So they stoop to tricks like
this in an attempt to stimulate sales.
A growing number of countries and businesses have wisely
decided it's time to bid adieu to MS formats. Those that don't
will live to regret it.
Man what a SCAM!
programs. format C:\ :-)
Now apparently I need to avoid service packs because some knucklehead wants to remove existing features. (Such as the ability to read my archived files ... which I do on a regular basis.)
I sincerely hope the next generation of products are better otherwise I'll be on XP for a LONG time. (Or switch to Linux or a Mac.)
If nothing else ... this had really shown me the value of open document formats.
Real reason...."If we build it, they no longer come, but if we break the old stuff they will buy the new stuff to maintain compatibility."
This is nothing more than a totally sick ploy to force people who use pre 2k3 to get 2k7...which is a piece of crap.
A chunk of malicious VB script in a .doc macro by itself is worthless and harmless when opened with an app that isn't MS Word (e.g. OpenOffice, TextEdit in Apple OSX, etc). That same chunk of VB scripted macro, when MS Office opens it? Well, that's a whole other story...
This is nothing more than a naked attempt to bolster sagging sales and force the upgrade treadmill to spin just a little faster.
IMHO, an business with even a teaspoon of sense would seriously consider converting their documentation (and spreadseets, etc) to an open-standard (for instance ODF) format, so they can at least open and edit those files 10 years from now without fearing obsolescence or periodically wasting time on mass conversion.
Ironically, MS Office 2003 has a plugin to convert documents to ODF format.
Of course, once you do this, you may just discover that you no longer need MS Office for much of anything, considering the free and highly capable alternatives already out there.
/P
Please provide that resource.
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
As a public relations firm, my company has at least 20 years of material in various Word formats, that folks often review and tailor for new business needs. It will be a HUGE problem for our firm for my users to come in after an evening of automatic Windows Updates, and find they can no longer open historical documents. I will NOT go desktop to desktop to edit registry files.
I am trusting Windows Update to keep my desktops safe from possible outside attacks. I do not expect Windows Update to remove existing functionality, and certainly not without warning!!! I fully expect Microsoft to restore the older file compatibility with a new emergency Windows Update, to be release immediately!
Fear not, though - I suspect that a few of my peers over at main corp IT (I'm in the R&D side) were sweating bullets since yesterday over whether or not to push the Office 2k3 SP out. I don't care either way... OpenOffice will handle old or new .doc and .xls files, no sweat.
By the by, a word of advice: never, ever, ever, ever patch blindly. You're discovering the primary reason why. Always have a 'canary' machine or two out there (I have a small subnet of 'em) to test on.
[i]"I fully expect Microsoft to restore the older file compatibility with a new emergency Windows Update, to be release immediately!"[/i]
Don't hold your breath.
You do have a solution, though it'll require a bit of manpower: grab some copies of OpenOffice and start converting older/archival documents en-masse to ODF, while you start doing a roll-back of the SP on those user machines which got it installed (you could roll it into an .msi and push that to save some time). Then make sure your users have the ODF plugin (Microsoft distributes an MS Office one for free).
I recommend doing both for two reasons: The first is a step towards a permanent solution (by converting your old docs to a format that won't get locked out at vendor whim), and the second is an interim solution until you can replace MS Office with OpenOffice, which can read pretty much any format you got.
/P
thats one of the funniest thing i ever heard.
if security is important to you... linux
and this has been a long known fact that windows itself is considered the worst piece of malware out there. even internet explorer is considered a windows API that gives hacker direct access to users hardware.
and now that microsoft has released some code to the Samba server guys, we should be seeing more and more reasons to dump windows for good.
Or what? You'll cry and pound your fists on the floor?
If that doesn't work, will you hold your breath until you turn blue and die, so that Steve Ballmer will <u>really</u> be sorry?
This can be horribly expensive for any business.
Heck, even on my home machine, I'm periodically frustrated by the fact that I cannot open an older .doc file with Office 2007. I love Office 2007, honestly, but the fact I cannot open an older file really makes me mad. Fortunately, I have Office 2003 sitting on another machine, but this is not a workable solution forever.
Microsoft really needs to add support back for older files to both Office 2003 and 2007!
What's all the fuss about?
It is also likely that you opened the older files previously in MS Office 2k3 and saved them, which would bump the version/formatting up to 2k3.
/P
document archival. It isn't the only problem with doing that,
either. For instance:
- Some versions of Word have in the past saved corrupted files
under some circumstances, which open in that version of Word,
but no later version.
- Often people link rather than embed objects, which means you
need to keep the other files too (often this doesn't happen, or
they're at a different path and so can't be located automatically).
For archival purposes, it's best to store things in PDF. You might
keep the original files too, but as this demonstrates, there's no
guarantee that you will be able to open them in future.
Is OO perfect? No. Its still a resource hog, slow to load. But it works, its free, and it gets the job done. Plus I don't have to worry about Microsoft doing something stupid every other week.
NWLB
***************
NWLBtech.com
they need to be able to access these files whenever they want... not when microsoft decides they should.
do you understand or should i type slower?
The support for these formats were in Office 2003, they didn't need to do any work to keep supporting them. They did however have to spend time blocking it.
Now many soon-to-be former customers are going to have to spend time and money converting them. If they are smart it will not be to any lock in format like .docx.
It doesn't matter how ancient a file format is. There is no reason to take out existing functionality.
This is typical unethical behavior from Microsoft and if you can't see it, then you are simple willfully blind or just plain ignorant.
Convert them to PDF? And not be able to use some of them for the purpose I'm keeping them around?
how he can not open his old Word files
Oh no! Word 97 users are left in the dust! But... kind of like IE5 users, they must be getting used to things not displaying right ANYWAY.
What doesn't quite make sense (of all the really acient formats that should have been blocked... but maybe in 2007) is that Word 2004 for Mac format was blocked.
Do you realize how many archived business files are out there that are in older formats?
Seriously, you should understand an issue before spouting off on it.
Here's a clue - SP3 was released 3 months ago. If your automatically updated users haven't been complaining about lost functionality by now, they're very unlikely to start showing up at your door tomorrow morning.
Come to think of it, my desktop doesn't have a 5.25" floppy disk in it either. That's obviously a conspiracy.
* When it comes to retrieving archived files, time scales tend to be a bit larger than the week or so after an update/patch. And you're right - they are unlikely to show up at the door tomorrow morning. However, when they finally get around to opening a file and can't - then what? Go to the CIO and demand that the corp pay up a massive vig to Microsoft just to be able to read the files?
* Speakin' of time scales, have you ever heard of Sarbanes-Oxley by any chance? It's gonna be fun when a department gets compliance-audited sometime off in the near future, but can't retrieve the mandatory archival files because MSFT wanted a couple more sales. After all, if they're willing to pull this stunt today, what's to stop them from tightening the noose a little when Office 2009/10/whatever comes out?
/P
Training
10 to 15 years ago, it was a must to train each new hire in the proper use of MS Office. Now, you have folks coming out of college who are proficient in MS Office and Windows. As a result, a business' training costs are dramatically slashed.
Support
With more users and support staff knowledgable in MS Office, that creates a readily available pool of knowledge to help solve problems. Even if a new staffer can't get the helpdesk on the phone, their cubicle neighbor may know how to assist them in doing a mail merge. If a small business relies on outside consultants, there are larger pools of MS Office expertise available for hire, than there are for Open Office.
Compatibility
Businesses rely on not just MS Office, but a variety of plugins/macros/etc that are designed to work with MS Office to get the job done. It's almost as if MS Office becomes a platform in that regard for development. Going with a solution other than MS Office may break these applications. Bloomberg's news software has a plugin that works with Excel, for instance. Then, you can even have variations in how different programs read a complex formatted file. There is always some format issue when using one program to read another's file format. If a client sends a business a Word 2003 file, and the business edits it in Open Office, what happens if Open Office drops a special style bullet that the client chose in Word? Do you tell your client to find another style bullet compatible with your copy of Open Office? Not if you want to stay in business!
I'm not advocating for Microsoft. If I had my way, we would still be using Netware and Groupwise! Or maybe Linux. The point is that if you have thousands of clients (as we do) that you share files with, or many programs that depend on the presence of known standards, bucking the standard introduces compatibility issues for the business. Until Open Office reaches that critical mass, it will not replace MS Office as the business standard. In fact, I'd bet there are more copies of Corel WordPerfect (free with some PCs) in use than there are of Open Office.
OpenOffice has nothing to do with Linux, so why bring that up?
OpenOffice is at least as easy to use as Office 2003 is. Anyone competent with 2003 can easily make the transition.
I think it's ironic that you say compatibility is such an important point, considering the article was about MS reducing compatibility even with its own aging versions of programs.
For more complicated there might be justification for using an Office Suite but I don't know that it's work $800.
behind this change and I really don't like the fact that it wasn't
fully disclosed with the update. This is exactly the kind of thing
that people don't like about ms. bad move imo
That said, google docs is no answer. The word "beta" should
give you pause if nothing else does. There is no guarantee at all
that google docs will be around in 6 days let alone 6 months.
Secondly, everyone likes to tout the 10% usage statistic...but no
one seems to realize that everyone doesn't use the same 10%! 1
guy might do a lot of mail merge, another a lot of word tables
and a 3rd might manage huge docs with multiple sections and
hyperlinking within the document. Many more examples could
be pulled out of every day use. The fact is that ms office
accommodates all those users. Open Office doesn't. Google
docs certainly doesn't. In a large organization with many
different types of users, how can OO or gdocs fit the bill? In my
experience it can't. Furthermore, if I found out that someone in
my organization was putting sensitive company information on
an advertiser's server (i.e. google docs) i'd fire them immediately.
That's simply irresponsible.
oh, and ms office doesn't cost $800 I found the pro copy for
$400 bucks on buy.com before any kind of volume discounts. i
am sure the large users I am referencing in this post pay much
less than that, if anything at all (SA benefits)
its disgusting. forcing hardware vendors to only produce windows-only hardware, and pulling this kind of crap with their own legal customers.
man i wish we had a country that worked.
anything more than that I use InDesign. I find Word to be clunky to
use.
MS itself said they did this.
And no, I never upgraded my old file formats - hence, I am stuck with tons of old 5" floppies full of info that isn't stored anywhere else, and yes, I was dumb enough to let the opportunities to update them slip through ... personal data, but beloved by me, nonetheless. I DO still insist on having a floppy drive on all my computers, though, unlike some folks - but even I don't have anything that can read a 5 inch floppy. Does that make me archaic? I doubt it - I'm like Mike, I'll try anything. I don't know a darn thing about computers, but I'll download any kind of demo, beta, or free trial just to play. So much for this particular computer - Windows Live OneCare destroyed my registry, and I still haven't gotten it back to normal two months after removing the offender - but that's okay - I can always reformat.
Back to the original story - to me, there is no reason to insult those who have not upgraded their files for whatever reason - in the case of my mother's associates, simply because they'd have to buy a whole new computer, and they don't need to - they never go online. I do, however, feel sorry for my mother, who, as president, has taken it on herself to be responsible for that agency, as well as another non profit AND her own business. The learning curve IS steep - and she's much braver than I am, to take on Publisher '07 with no training.
Can't MS ever fix anything without breaking other things? Ever heard of full regression testing?
And no, they do not know how to test.
Having spent many years supporting MS products, well, I just keep shaking my head. As to the poster who dumps documents after 5 years... what, you work at MS corporate or something?