Purchase Of Office Professional 2010

[hlewton]

Thanks Jay Freedman I am still debating what I want to do. First I am going to reread this entire thread and see if I feel like tackling the steps necessary to keep both versions but I suspect I won't. I have had Revo Uninstaller installed for quite some time now but I did start it just to make sure it would find Office 2003 and it did so I feel safe in using it as you both recommended if I do decide to remove Office 2003.

[Rudi]

Do you still use Office 2003?
Once you start using Office 2013 you probably won't want to go back to 2003 anyways. Well at least that is IMHO

[hlewton]

Do you still use Office 2003?
Once you start using Office 2013 you probably won't want to go back to 2003 anyways. Well at least that is IMHO

I have to agree with you except for one thing. When I do mail merges I understand 2003's methods after I activate the mail merge toolbar with the "Insert Merge Field" as part of it better than those of the newer versions of Office but I have been trying to get used to them in Office 2010. Still I'd probable be better off without relying on Office 2003.

The only other though I had about keeping it was if I ever decided to quit paying MS the annual fee for the Office 365 than I'd still have a workable version of office on the machine.

[hlewton]

I was thinking about this NoRereg DWORD registry edit thing and wondering since I still only have Office 2003 on the machine if I could go ahead and try the edit without hurting anything. I believe it would be fine but if not please let me know. Also if I am understanding what I have read about creating that registry key since I have Win 7 64 bit versions of the OS then I create a DWORD Value and not a DWORD (32 bit) Value key. I’m not sure if when I try doing this if I would be offered only the DWORD Value option or not but just wanted to ask ahead of time so I knew what to do.

Also I believe I could play around before downloading the Office 365 and change the folder where the Office 2003 Word stores the Normal.dot so I have everything ready for the downloaded Office 2013. Again if I am not thinking straight on these subjects please let me know.

I have read about changing the default folder where my files are stored and I want to keep them in the same folder as they are now. If I follow Jay Freedman post on changing the default location I don't think that will be a problem, will it?

Thanks

[Rudi]

Do you still use[/bWhen I do mail merges I understand 2003's methods after I activate the mail merge toolbar with the "Insert Merge Field" as part of it better than those of the newer versions of Office

The choice is yours re the Office 2003 package, but just to inform that the ribbon version of mail merge is just as easy to access fields and insert them one at a time....

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[hlewton]

Thanks Rudi I'll have to look for that in 2010 that I have now.

[HansV]

The 'Insert Merge Field' dropdown is available on the Mailings tab in Word 2010 too. Of course, it will only be enabled if the active document is a mail merge document for which a data source has been specified.

[hlewton]

At the present time I am not going to mess with the computers I have Office 2010 on but I am with the one that has office 2003 on it. I am trying to learn how to change the default location of the Normal.dot that Jay Freedman said should be done and in searching the WEB I find a few articles like this one http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/offi ... b6d27e0a83 that I think will help me locate its present folder but so far I have not found anything telling me how to change that default location. If I do find the Normal.dot where the link above says and copy the Normal.dot how do I change the default folder so the next time Word 2003 opens it will use the new location?

[HansV]

In Word 2003, select Tools | Options...
Activate the File Locations tab.
Select 'User Templates' under 'File types', then click Modify...
Take good note of the current location, then specify the new one.
Click OK until you're back in Word.
Close Word.
In Windows Explorer, copy Normal.dot from the old location to the new one.
You can now start Word again.

[hlewton]

The 'Insert Merge Field' dropdown is available on the Mailings tab in Word 2010 too. Of course, it will only be enabled if the active document is a mail merge document for which a data source has been specified.

Thanks Hans. I just tried it and I did manage to get it to work very similar to what I am used to.

[hlewton]

In Word 2003, select Tools | Options...
Activate the File Locations tab.
Select 'User Templates' under 'File types', then click Modify...
Take good note of the current location, then specify the new one.
Click OK until you're back in Word.
Close Word.
In Windows Explorer, copy Normal.dot from the old location to the new one.
You can now start Word again.

Thanks again Hans. I will definitely give this a try.

[hlewton]

I really am a bit confused. I am trying to add that No Rereg DWORD Value and these are the steps I am trying to follow after reaching the correct Registry key.
• Click Edit, New and add either a DWORD Value or a DWORD (32-bit) Value (depends on your Windows' version)
• Name the new DWORD Value NoRereg
• Right-Click on the new NoRereg value and select Modify
• Change the Hexidecimal Value data to 1
• Repeat for each version of Word installed on your computer
In the first step is where I am getting confused because the way I read it since my Window 7 OS is a 64 bit OS I believe I should be adding a DWORD Value but the only choice I have once I click Edit, New, and Add is a DWORD Value (32-Bit). Do you suppose there is a step missing or is the option DWORD Value (32-Bit) the only option because it is Word 2003? I don't believe it has anything to do with Word being 2003 because I checked my other Win 7 64-Bit machine running Word 2010 and it too only had the DWORD (32-Bit) option. I'm just not sure what to do so I just exited the Regedit program.

[HansV]

The 64-bit version is called "QWORD (64-bit) Value".

But I assume that you have the 32-bit version of Office 2010, even if you have 64-bit Windows. For that, you have to add a "DWORD (32-bit) Value", not a "QWORD (64-bit) Value".

Instead of editing the registry, you can also use the instructions in Microsoft Office installs” when opening a file.

[hlewton]

Thanks Hans for the information. I did check out that link and it seems to me to suggest that office programs other than Word may need the Rereg key. Also I assume since Office 365 is Office 2013 I would use 15 in place of 14 for that version.

[HansV]

Yes, and yes.

[hlewton]

I keep going back and forth on whether to keep Office 2003 or not. I have taken initial steps to keep it only because if I ever stopped paying MS’s annual fee I would still have a program that would allow me to open and modify files but in the meantime I do not intend to ever use Office 2003 to open any files as long as Office 2013 or any future version is installed and operable. I have tried to figure out how I can make sure that only Office 2013 opens files even if I use Windows Explorer to open them and have not found any answers. So I am wondering if I do keep both versions of Office installed, make those ReReg DWORD edits, keep separate templates folders for the different versions, set the default file location to my local drive is there a way to force only Office 2013 to open files when double clicking on them in Windows Explorer? If this is not possible then I'll probably bite the bullet and uninstall Office 2003 first.

Thanks.

[Jay Freedman]

Installing Office 365 will take care of setting Word 2013 as the default program for opening both .doc and .docx files. The hard task is trying to set up Windows so that .doc files open in Word 2003 and .docx files open in Word 2013 -- that requires manual surgery in a section of the registry that most people should stay out of.

[hlewton]

Installing Office 365 will take care of setting Word 2013 as the default program for opening both .doc and .docx files. The hard task is trying to set up Windows so that .doc files open in Word 2003 and .docx files open in Word 2013 -- that requires manual surgery in a section of the registry that most people should stay out of.

Thank you.

[hlewton]

I have decided to remove Office 2003 to keep things simpler for me. When I open Revo Uninstaller I see Office 2003 and know that has to be removed but I also see Microsoft Office File Validation Add in as a separate entry in the list of installed programs. Do I need to remove that also?

[HansV]

I don't think it matters. If you remove it now, it will probably be reinstalled when you install Office 2013/Office 365. But it won't hurt to uninstall it.

Added: go with Jay Freedman's recommendation in the next reply - he knows more about this than I do.