Windows 7: Office 03 and 07 on same machine

Ok I have Office 2003 and have used it for a while and have 2007 also and just installed it. I selected for Outlook 03 to be removed since it said only one version can be installed. Well when it was done installing 2003 was completely gone for some reason and knowing there have been compatibility issues I wanted Word and Excel at least from 03 to be there if I needed them.

At this point I re-installed Word and Excel 03 all seemed fine till I tried to open Word 07 and it began the Office install process...seemed odd to me since it was already installed so I canceled it and Word 07 popped open. After repeating this process it did the same thing. I figured the install got botched so I uninstalled 07. When trying to open Word 03 it started the Office install process again...and yes it was already installed.

At this point I am back to 2003 only for now until someone can maybe shed some light on this issue. It seems these two don't like being installed together but I have read other post of people having no issues with this. Any ideas are welcome.

Not really sure why you would need 2003, seven has all the same functions and more. I notice you are still using the RC (good until March 2010). Maybe that is what is causing the problems, or is this also happening in Vista as you have both installed.

Since you are doing dual boot maybe you could put 2003 in Vista, and 2007 in Win 7 to see what happens. Just some thoughts. Good luck.

OH...I need to update that...I have retail Windows 7-64bit now and Vista is not installed. I re-did the installation again and what it does is if you run like Word 07 first all is good with that and then if you open Word 03 second it brings up the Office installation screen like it is not installed when it is. Now if you open Word 03 first all is good and then when you open Word 07 it brings up the install screen. So basically whatever one you open SECOND it opens the Office installation screen.

I want to keep only Word and Excel 03 still installed as I have lots of work related documents that were done on 03 and I have read there can be issues opening them at times. I am sure there is a way around that with the compatibility pack but I have years of invoices I cannot afford to lose or not be able to open for any type of reason.

I have never had a problem opening an earlier version document in 2007. It was designed to open any version of office documents or spreadsheets (automatically opens in compatability mode). I know there is a problem for some users opening office 2007 documents in an earlier version of office but this can be solved by always saving your documents in the compatible mode option.

If you are really concerned about your invoices etc, I would save them all on an external hard drive as backup (which is advisable in any case) and you will always have a copy to rely on.

There really is no issue with 2007 with regards to older documents and if anything is going to cause you issues it would be having two office versions loaded onto the one computer.

Good luck