Having more than one version of Office on the one pc!

py2006

Hi all,

Due to my line of work I wish to have different versions of Office on my pc at home. I currently have 2003 and 2007 installed but every time I launch one of their programs it goes through a brief installation process. I did a brief google on this but I didnt really follow what they were saying!

I am aware of the issue regarding Outlook so I only have the one version of that installed.

I hope to be ordering 2010 shortly which is going to add to the headache.

Any suggestions or simple workarounds?

Thanks

drunkmonkey

Why would you need 3 versions, I don't see what you could be doing that would require it? Maybe there's something else you could do with one version that's easier.

py2006

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Why would you need 3 versions, I don't see what you could be doing that would require it? Maybe there's something else you could do with one version that's easier.

I teach it and use different versions depending where I teach it so its handy for prep work to have multiple versions at home!

Dulchie

The main problem is that when you use either 2003 or 2007 then the other version an install message pops up requiring a partial reinstall. This is caused by a key in the registry.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928091/en-gb
If you are willing to apply the patch then the reinstall requirement disappears.

With regard to 2010, yes it can co-exist with both 2003 and 2007 but depending on the order of installation the default action for say *.doc is determined by the last version installed, if however you rerun the installation for an other version it becomes the default to open the various types such as *.doc. *.xls *.ppt

I have a machine with the exact setup you propose which I use for software support for clients and it works perfectly.

py2006

Dulchie wrote: »

The main problem is that when you use either 2003 or 2007 then the other version an install message pops up requiring a partial reinstall. This is caused by a key in the registry.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928091/en-gb
If you are willing to apply the patch then the reinstall requirement disappears.

With regard to 2010, yes it can co-exist with both 2003 and 2007 but depending on the order of installation the default action for say *.doc is determined by the last version installed, if however you rerun the installation for an other version it becomes the default to open the various types such as *.doc. *.xls *.ppt

I have a machine with the exact setup you propose which I use for software support for clients and it works perfectly.

Ah ok, so if I apply this patch, I could create shortcuts to the different versions and 2007 will be my default versionn at the moment and when I add 2010 that will take over as the default!

Dulchie

You can create shortcuts to any of the versions of Word etc. Each shortcut will allow you to open that version of Word.
The actual icons are slightly different and you can rename the shortcuts as Word 2003 etc. if you wish.

With regard to the default program, what I mean is that if you have say "Test.Doc" on you desktop and double click it to open the version of Word that it will open is determined by which version of Office was last installed or reinstalled.

The registry problem does not exist with Office 2010.

swampgas

Two options come to mind:
(1) Install VMs to run the other versions of Office. (Might be Windows licensing gotchas here)
(2) something like VMware Thinapp - but that's horrendously expensive unless you're a huge company.

Using something like VMware Workstation might be worth looking at.

de8o

swampgas wrote: »

Two options come to mind:
(1) Install VMs to run the other versions of Office. (Might be Windows licensing gotchas here)
(2) something like VMware Thinapp - but that's horrendously expensive unless you're a huge company.

Using something like VMware Workstation might be worth looking at.

Fully agree. Use a VM for each version.

py2006

Forgive my ignorance but what is VM?

swampgas

A VM is a "Virtual Machine". VMware Workstation (for example) is an application that emulates a physical PC. This starts up like a PC with no OS installed. You would then then have to install an OS, say Windows, and then you could install Office on top of that.

There are lots of demos on YouTube - example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg9XPoIWQ5Q