Review by brainout

UPDATE 4/23/13: if you’ve installed Windows 7 or 8 FIRST, and the installation is 32-bit, then you can indeed install these older MS Office programs. I installed MS Office Professional 2000 and 2002 on two Dell Windows 7 Professional 32-bit laptops. The 2003 is installed on a third Dell Windows 7 Pro, but is an Optiplex. Get 2002 or 2000, as 2003 (especially in Outlook) is very annoying. The latter also removes backwards compatibility UNLESS you download the UnlockExcel.reg and UnlockWord.reg files from MS (free download). And, be sure not to accept the MS Office 2003 bizillion updates for alleged problems. Again, 2002 and prior are a better buy (more customizable, more add-ins, nicer), unless you have some specific need for 2003.

Rest of the review follows below, without further edit.

UPDATE 9/9/12: This review is long and unwieldy, sorry; it covers not only the upgrade version listed here; but also, this review compares full versions of Office 2003 and prior. I’ll be editing this review ad hoc, too. The problem here is the LACK OF BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY imposed by later versions of Windows or Office. So it becomes very complicated, to explain the variant problems with different MS versions of Office, and how to make them work. If you have older files, you have to deal with these complex problems. Hence this review: it’s mind-boggling. MS has now made computing far more difficult than necessary.

According to Windows 7 Compatibility advisor, Office 2002 and prior are NOT compatible with Windows 7. But according to users in the PC World forums, you can still use Office 2000-2002, especially Word and Excel, but might have problems with Outlook 2000, IF IF IF you configured it to run your email (the email passwords won’t store, when Outlook 2000 is run from Win7 OS). Google for PC World Office 2000, 2002 and for Windows 7. Replace ‘PC World’ with ‘MS Answers Forums’ to see the same issues discussed in MS Answers Forums. Pity that MS won’t support its own products, when the newer versions of the same products, are worse.

SHORT SUMMARY: The #1 reason to buy this older (pre-2003) software, now that it’s outdated – is for backwards-compatibility. And, some of its older functions work better than in Word 2003 et seq. And, if you migrate to Win 7, you’ll lose Outlook Express (one of the few stable and good programs MS has written, so OF COURSE they get rid of it). So you’ll have to learn Microsoft Outlook, anyway. This matters most, because Outlook after version 2000, stinks. Your other alternative will be SmartSuite version 9.8 and prior, from IBM. Those versions are also backwards-compatible. Latest SmartSuite might not be able to read DOS files from Win7, IBM told me. But SmartSuite itself, is able to run in Win7, per MS’ own listing of ‘compatible’ programs. So try buying here in Amazon, earlier versions of SmartSuite, which run between $6 - $50 (versions 9.8 and prior). I’m testing those, so am writing reviews of SmartSuite as well (review is still in progress). The latest version of SmartSuite can only be purchased at IBM, so far as I can tell, but it’s still called version 9 (but is later than the versions sold here at Amazon). The latest version costs about $400, so you’d be smart to get an earlier version here in Amazon, see if you like it.

For later versions of Word (or SmartSuite) can read Word 2000-2002 files, as well as files in other older programs for Windows (SmartSuite can read more older files, even from DOS).

Why is that important? These older Windows programs thus become BRIDGE programs to enable later MS software to read word processing and spreadsheet software which is PRE-2000. In short, you open those older files in Word/Excel 2000-2002, and then CONVERT them into Word/Excel 2000-2002. At which point, later MS software can work with the same file. Else, it’s toast. So if you have many old files, you need Office XP 2000 or 2002, as a ‘bridge’ back to your old files. So now the question: WHICH? 2000, or 2002? No simple answer. Depends on what Office products you’re using now, and whether you use Acrobat. The rest of this review is on these complex questions.

WARNING: Windows 7 will not work with Outlook 2000. Lots of complaints about that, in MS Answers forums. Problem with passwords; they won’t store in Outlook 2000, when operated in Windows 7, because Windows 7 no longer allows you to use email directly from your computer; you have to use it in conjunction with Windows Live mail – a horrible thing. (Why MS keeps on wrecking its own older-but-good features, is beyond my comprehension.)nnSo if you’re planning to use Outlook 2000 in Windows 7, DO NOT install it with email enabled. Maybe then it will work in Windows 7, because people have told me they can get Office 2000 to work even in Windows 8, but without Outlook email enabled. So maybe you can install it and only in the new Windows version, enable email? I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot.

====== OFFICE 2000 versus 2002 ======nnOffice 2000 works best in Win98SE and XP Home. Office 2002 runs better in XP Professional; because the service packs convert Office 2000 into Word 2002 – with bugs. So if like I did, you then reinstall 2000 to get rid of the bugs, the reinstallation conflicts with the updates. So that problem is solved if you upgrade to Office version 2002.

BUT BEWARE: select CUSTOM installation of 2002. If you’re on Windows XP Professional OS, DO NOT UPGRADE OUTLOOK 2000 to 2002. So don’t install Outlook 2002, if you’re using Outlook 2000. That’s what I did (see last three paragraphs of this review).

====== OUTLOOK 2000 versus later editions ======nnOutlook 2000 still beats the competing PIM and other calendar management software ‘out there’ for Windows, if you have a lot of recurring events in your year, i.e., you are an tax accountant, actuary, tax lawyer who deals with annual IRS deadlines. Outlook is too much hassle to use, unless you have a lot of legal or other deadlines which you must track annually. Same would be said if you are a buyer or supplier of regular shipments. Buggy and cumbersome though Outlook is, once you properly set it up for recurring events/appointments, they keep on going forever. Holidays, not so good: the list is stale-dated after a few years; it’s a hassle to go to MS to update your holidays, but they do provide updated lists (current one runs 2007-2012). I just don’t use them, have a paper calendar for that stuff.

Here’s how I use it: your usage will of course differ, but you can tell the PATTERN, and then adapt for your needs. Key here is RECURRING DEADLINES. Everyone has recurring deatlines. Outlook shines in that respect. So (as stated again below), a) I keep a thin wireback 8.5 x 11 paper calendar for basics on holidays, and workload planning. Easy to store in the files, easier then to get a sense of where to look for stuff in Outlook. Next, b) I programmed legal deadlines in Excel based on the client year end, because in pensions you end up having six or seven separate deadlines a month, centering around the 15th and the end of the month, based on the Plan or client fiscal year end. It’s a nightmare. So that master list of deadlines based on year end, helps a great deal. Finally, c) in Outlook I then plotted a generic calendar by year end, so the deadlines show as ‘events’ in my calendar each day, week, month. So Outlook is a glorified alarm clock. Hassle to program, but easier than using a PDA or cellphone. (Sidekick is next best, but you can’t really run it properly in a DOS window, after Win98SE.)nnA client is likewise an ‘event’ keyed to that particular year end. Because in my business, the penalties are high for missing deadlines. IRS almost always forgives the penalty if you’ve good reason for being late, but no one wants to go through that angst. Hopefully this paragraph gave you ideas you can extrapolate for your own usage.

You might want to know about printing. You can print any configuration you’ll likely want, but remember that the longer the timeline per print job, the smaller the font needs to be, and the harder it will be to get decent output. Daily, weekly, monthly works well. A whole year can be done, but it’s not useful. You can configure the day/week/month with filters to create a blank calendar. But that will cost you more time than if you just bought one.

Frankly, you’ll waste time to print calendars. The minute you print them, you’ll find something you need to change. So better to go paperless, if you need something to distribute: for this, you print to pdf. Lots of good pdf printers out there, and you probably already have one on your machine. My favorite is Smart PDF Creator Pro, but I also have Acrobat 9 (the latter creates the smallest file size of any pdf print program I’ve seen). So you ‘print’ to the pdf printer on your machine, saving paper, time and guilt when you find, five seconds later, that the format is screwy or you left something out. Outlook also exports to devices: here it might matter that you use Outlook 2003, depending on your device. Many more devices are configured to interface with Outlook, than with the other PIM software ‘out there’. It’s usually a hassle to set up the first few times, because the names in your device don’t match the names in Outlook, so you go through trial-and-error finding out which OUTLOOK names ‘port’ to your device. But in the end, it is worth the effort.

Frankly, the old At-A-Glance monthly or weekly calendars are great. But the problem is, if you have a lot of complicated recurring items you’ll later need to SEARCH for, the paper method is no good. So I keep paper for just the basics (like holidays and planning out my workload), but record the details in Outlook. Stuff done stays in Outlook forever if you want it to, and you can archive anything for any period, manually or automatically (pick manual, never trust MS automated anything).

Outlook 2000 is the best version. It’s ‘views’ are very configurable; it’s extremely buggy (as is true of all MS products), but is better than later versions of Outlook. On XP Home, Outlook 2002 will ‘obey’ the Outlook 2000 settings you have, but you lose future ‘view’ configurability. Outlook 2003 will not recognize the Outlook 2000 settings on XP Home; nor will Outlook 2002 on XP Professional OS. I don’t know whether the settings will be recognized on Win7, since I won’t upgrade to that terrible, new OS. (Win 7 is still VISTA, but with some corrections.)nnOutlook 2000 can display custom-sized and positioned units, all on the same ‘page’: tasks, calendar, etc. For example, you can widen or narrow dimensions; say, Notes and Tasks alongside a daily or weekly calendar. Again, THE reason to get Outlook, is its ability to set recurring events, and link them to notes, tasks, and journalling. Bugs all have workarounds. Since this is software you’d use daily, you’ll get used to the workarounds.

(Old Borland Sidekick, and the old Lotus Metro were less buggy, but also less configurable. Forget WordPerfect’s PIM. All business contact management software, stinks. Been there, done that, have the war wounds.)nnBy contrast, Outlook 2002 (in XP Pro) et seq. only allow one view at a time, Calendar OR Notes OR Tasks. You must open new windows to view, say, Notes and/or Tasks alongside each other; of course you must resize the windows each time. So you’re constantly stuck with moving them around.

In short, the last viable version of Outlook, is 2000. Part of its viability ports over when you upgrade in 2002 in XP Home; but only data is ported over for Outlook 2003, which is utterly dysfunctional. For example, your ‘contacts’ begin with REAMS of BLANKS, and there is no option for NAME fields. What drunk designed that data The only way you can deal with it is to sort DESCENDING, or GUESS how many BLANKS you must first delete before you can reach the ‘A’ in contacts. God forbid you click on any of the letters (which are supposed to be address-book-tabs), and above all don’t click on 123, because then you can’t sort at all – well, until you leave ‘Contacts’, at which point when you return, your names are necessarily bass-ackwards. But at least then you can see how many BLANKS you have to delete, and then reset sort to ascending. Still, you can’t organize FIELDS in Contacts. Oh, wait – you can specify the fields, but you can’t SEE them, and there is no ‘current view’ available listing NAMES first. None of this hassle applied in older versions of Outlook. Unbelievable.

But finally, Outlook 2003 allows you to specify a certain folder to open on startup (i.e., your calendar, instead of that useless Outlook Today with too much white space and no configurability). In Outlook 2000, you specify this by selecting Tools Options Other Advanced Options button, then pick what you want to display at startup from the drop-down box. (Sorry for the arcane step names. Clarity is not, an MS forte.)nnOutlook 2003 imposes problems when editing tasks, i.e., the highlighter seems to be on one task though you’ve clicked on a different one, so you’ll think you delete the HIGHLIGHTED one; but instead you deleted the task on which your CURSOR (not mouse), resides.

Something must be wrong with the water, in Redmond WA.

Outlook 2002 et seq, FORCE TWO LINES OF ICONS. You can’t uncheck that Options box. When installing In XP Professional, it crashes, then tells you it can’t use your prior version settings or your store, would you like to use the default. If you say no, the program quits. If you say yes, it wipes out your prior settings, and you have to do them all over: that’s a week’s work.

Same ‘week’ cost is true for Outlook 2000, but when you get it configured rightly, it’s a decent program; it has a nice PDA transfer capability, is easy to import and export to other formats.

====== PHOTO EDITOR 2000 versus later editions ======nnDO NOT UPGRADE THE PHOTO EDITOR, either. The 2000 version is much more full-featured. The 2002 replacement isn’t bad, but it’s not as good as the year 2000 version.

====== OTHER OFFICE PROGRAMS (excepting Word and Excel) ======nnBusiness Contact Manager, Front Page, Power Point and Access are useless programs, all glitch and no gain. You might need Access, though, as many other non-MS programs, use its structure and features. MS Power Point can result in a pretty slide show, but in Windows Movie Maker you can do more, and more easily. (Pity Microsoft is so short-sighted, it won’t modernize WMM. MS is losing profits, by not modernizing it. Again, the MS programs that are actually USEFUL, get scant MS attention. The programs we NEED to be useful as well but are so buggy you itch for a gun, are ‘upgraded’ to be more buggy, still.)nnDocument Imaging and Scanning is marginally better in Office 2002, can be quite useful. The default tiff file is easy to manipulate, small in size, and most older scanners can thus ‘talk’ to MS Document Imaging (i.e., the Brother line of MFC). You have to tweak the MS settings each time; but especially for older scanners and files, these programs are a godsend. They are somewhat easier to use than Acrobat and PaperPort, but operate along much the same lines. Like MS, Acrobat is phasing out backwards-compatibility.

====== WORD and EXCEL 2000 and 2002 versus later editions ======nnAcrobat can’t work with Word post-2002, though it claims compatibility. It can’t work with Word 2000, per its own website (see my review on Acrobat 9, here in Amazon.)nnSo that leaves Word 2002 and Excel 2002. GET THEM, if you ever used Win98SE or even Win 3.1 – and thus have old computer files from that time and prior. Office 2002 is the last MS version to support backwards compatibility with the powerhouse software of yesteryear (Word Perfect, Quattro Pro, Lotus 1-2-3, Ami, etc). Later versions ELIMINATE backwards-compatibility; and worse, impose a ‘restriction policy’ you can’t override without screaming (see my review of Word 2003 in Amazon).

So you will need Office 2002 or 2000 to READ older files. Moreover, older software CANNOT SEARCH the drive. WordPerfect through X5 cannot search its own files on a disk. Only can search its own files within a directory of a disk. Windows, by contrast, can’t read WordPerfect files to search for text. This was not a problem in 98SE, but is a problem now. So if you don’t have some ‘bridge’ software that CAN read those old files, you’re stuck.

If you’re on XP Professional OS, then old spreadsheets like Lotus 1-2-3 wk1’s, must be converted via an older version of Excel; to enable a later version of Excel, to read the file. In XP Home (but NOT Professional), Office 2003’s Excel CAN read Lotus 1-2-3 files, but later versions of Excel, cannot; because, in later versions, the wk1 format is deemed dangerous, and you can’t fix the Excel default to accept that format. So, you’d have to convert the wk1 to an Excel format. This is especially true, if you want your family/friends/clients to read wk1 files.

Any version of Office is mediocre, buggy; what automation they should allow, they prohibit. What automation they impose, wrecks your work. For example, DEFAULTS at installation involve ‘autoformat’ and ‘update style’, which on the surface, sound harmless and even beneficial. But if you don’t spend hours examining and unchecking these and other defaults prior to creating an important document, you’ll have regrets.

Example: say you install, didn’t check the defaults, and start to write a document. You create bulleted lists. When you’ve reached page 18, you decide to reformat the indentation and type of bullets on THAT page. YOU think you’re only changing the format of the latest bullet list. Surprise surprise – ALL your previous bulleted lists, ALSO changed to CONFORM to your latest ‘auto update style’.

So everything’s bass-ackwards with MS software: before you do anything, you must carefully review every default setting, and figure out how to change it.

So TURN OFF ALL AUTOMATED FUNCTIONS just after installation. Before you create any document, call up each program and examine its Options and Customize and Autoformat. It will take all day to figure out what you must turn off or on. Then hit the SAVE (floppy disk) icon to save, without naming the document/spreadsheet. For that first document/spreadsheet which comes up, is the DEFAULT. Word’s default is Normal.dot, and Excel’s default is Book1.xls. But you won’t see the former’s name when you open Word; instead, it labels as Doc1.doc; but it IS, Normal.dot. So make your changes to the Options (including Color, for Excel), then hit the SAVE (floppy disk) icon to save it IN the default.

So always have a backup copy before you edit in Word or Excel 2002. Never trust that what you edited, was all that changed. Read the entire document over.

What about their vaunted templates? Yecccch. And what if you design one of your own? Well, here’s the problem: you can’t SEE the formatting so if you backspace, you just wiped it out. Thankfully, there’s ‘Reveal Formatting’ (in ‘Format’ menu, or separately moveable as an icon – tricky thing to create it). So if your Formatting is REVEALED (by a frame on the right side of your document) – as you type, you can see what formatting is used for that line. This is far better than Word Perfect’s stupid Reveal Codes, but the latter at least smartly warns if you’re deleting a ‘style’ or ‘format’; or (at least in WP 9) flat presumes you only mean to delete text. Now if only WP would get rid of auto-formatting for a printer hooked up to your system…

Word is not so smart. It could be MADE to be smart, if they souped up their current option to ‘show formatting marks’ to INCLUDE the style identifiers. So you can’t see the STYLE, except via Reveal Formatting’ frame at right of your document.

It is easy to change and add styles, but spend the hour or two it takes to figure out how to add those styles to Normal.dot, because a changed style only ‘stays’ with the document you edit. Same problem is true for Excel, but Excel allows you to always COPY to and from Book1.xls, as you work. This matters a bunch, for MS default colors are egregious. In Excel but not Word, you can change the colors, save them to Book1.xls, and then ‘copy’ them into whatever other worksheet you later open. Else, any colors you change (using Tools Options Color tab), are only good for that worksheet and maybe for that SESSION. (It’s quirky: sometimes my Tools Options Colors modifications for a worksheet; save; and sometimes not, though I always go through the same steps, and have been doing this for years.)nn=== OTHER TIPS ===nnA. In Word, check the box in General tab which asks to be prompted to update the default template, ‘Normal.dot’. Else, any changes you make in program function (i.e., icons or options), won’t be preserved once you close the program. Similarly, if you goofed up your settings during a session, when prompted to update at close program, you can select ‘no’; thus your goofups won’t be saved. :)nnB. Word is notorious for not enabling underlined blanks. So to make blank underlined spaces, select Tools Options, then select the Compatibility tab, and check off ‘draw underline on trailing spaces’. Then hit the ‘default’ button at lower right, and click Yes. You’ve just enabled underlined blanks in all future documents. To enable them in past documents: repeat the foregoing steps, after having opened each such other document. The other way to do it, is to tap out your spaces, end them with punctuation, then paint UP TO the punctuation mark you made. Word will then draw the underline – BECAUSE that punctuation mark is on the same line. Weird.

C. Comments in Word are incredibly stupid. You’re better off making footnotes or endnotes or objects, since you can optionally hide these from printing. Bookmarks are a great alternative, since you can bookmark a section, so when the person clicks on it, can be redirected to the comment on some page not to be printed, then use the ‘Web’ Menu’s back or forward buttons, to return back to where he was reading. Comments in Excel are even more stupid, and no matter how you set them, a) you can’t set a DEFAULT NOTE STYLE so are stuck with the ungainly defaults the stupid programmers impose; b) every time you load the worksheet, when you go to EDIT the comments, your comment on edit might be MILES AWAY from the cell (though anchored to the cell, properly readable as a comment). I’ve spent hours slowly moving some edited comment which is anchored, say, to column E, but when opened for edit is somehow suddenly the size of a thin line, and way over in column FN, where no worksheet cells are active. Doesn’t matter whether you set the comment to move and resize with the cell, or move but not resize (no reason NOT to move the comment for a cell). Each single comment must be individually formatted, but all formatting options are available.

D. In Excel, to make the Print Preview show color, select a PDF printer in Page Setup, and make sure that ‘black and white’ is NOT checked in Page Setup Sheet tab. This enables you to print to pdf file, and keep the colors. A black-and-white printer will print colors as shades, anyway. So you don’t need to do anything special. (Older printers couldn’t print shades, so the ‘black-and-white’ option in Page Setup Sheet is something of a holdover. Any laser printer I’ve worked with, naturally recognizes color as a shade of gray. If you have a color printer, generally you won’t want to print black-and-white, either, as black ink is more expensive for color printers.)nnE. Editing text in Excel actually allows you full formatting options. Edit in the formula bar, and when you want to bold or color or highlight only a specific portion of the text, then do it like you would in Word: select the text then pick whatever formatting you want to apply to the selection. You can also conditionally format cells, but it’s buggy and limited. 3-D type function is easy enough, where in one tab you reference another worksheet by tab name – what’s hard, is that the instructions don’t make it clear, how to do this. It’s TABNAME!Cellname – be sure to include the exclamation. Cellname can be either a named range or an address. If a named range, be sure you’ve allowed ‘accept labels in formulas’, in the Tools Options Calculation tab. This is especially important if you’re importing a spreadsheet with named ranges (i.e., from Lotus 1-2-3). If you don’t allow those ‘labels’, ALL YOUR NAMED RANGES ARE CONVERTED TO CELL ADDRESSES INSTEAD, AND YOU CANNOT RENAME THEM. So says Excel help. I’ve not tested that warning for accuracy.

F. Else, in either 2000 or 2002, the footnotes, endnotes, section headers, table of contents, etc. are cumbersome but useful. The ‘styles’ are quirky; sometimes a backspace while working on a document, undoes or changes the style to something bizarre. Bookmarks are handy. Customize your icons, to save time later. In Word/Excel 2002, they insanely group the icons so that too much space is used. So to end that problem, you must move the icons around to make them fit in the top window line (next to ‘Help’); then, fit the rest of the icons so that they only take up ONE line. This fixing, takes hours. Again, the stupid DEFAULTS pay no attention to customer need, usage, or even common sense.

G. Word can’t merge well with a database. Comma-delimited or a text file is all it really knows. But WordPerfect, is even more cumbersome and glitchy. After years of trying to get either program to merge well, I fell back to my old DOS Multimate Advantage II. I use old DOS Sidekick on a 486, to create a paste file which then runs the merge. There ought to be a way to do the same thing in either Word or WordPerfect, but I’ve not found it. (IBM’s SmartSuite version 9.8 backwards, claim to enable real merging with a named range in a spreadsheet, even with DOS Lotus 1-2-3. I’m testing that claim, now. Will post its results in my SmartSuite review here in Amazon.)nn====== SUMMARY AND INSTALLATION TIPS ======nnSUMMING UP: On the whole, Office 2002 or 2000 is good enough for basic functions like a letter or a simple spreadsheet; for pretty colors but minimal functionality. Excel’s ability to do complex calculations – especially with dates – is awful. However – very ironic – if you programmed the functions in DOS Lotus 1-2-3, the pre-2003 versions of Excel recognize them correctly, and suddenly can handle dates and other complex calculations. In short, to make Exel really excel, you need DOS Lotus. (Oddly, Lotus Release 3-5 for Windows, can’t handle these calculations well. SmartSuite did seem to recognize/calculate the functions correctly, when I uploaded a DOS Lotus 1-2-3 worksheet into SmartSuite version 9.6 and 9.1.)nnHence the need for Office 2002 or 2000, in order to ‘read’ your wk1 files, and make Excel, useful. (Years ago I begged IBM to re-release DOS Lotus 1-2-3 – they own its rights, now – and never got an answer. So the only way you can get DOS 1-2-3 version 2.x, is to buy it from the secondary market, i.e., some ‘vintage software’ warehouse. Check here in Amazon, maybe someone’s selling it.)nnAgain, Office 2002 runs more smoothly than 2000, in XP Pro; but Outlook in 2002 is inflexible, compared to the 2000 version. There are also more add-ins created for 2000. Another flipside: 2002 is compatible with Acrobat 9 and X, but 2000 is not. Not to worry: buy Smart PDF Creator Pro, which can what Adobe can do for a much lower price; and will work with these older MS Office programs. So I just use Smart PDF Creator Pro with pre-2002 MS Office (and anything else).

Also, get the CONVERTERS, so that 2002 (or 2000) can read and use LATER versions of Word and Excel (like xlsx and docx extensions). The converters do work. Google on fileconverters.exe , to get the download from Microsoft. That’s its program name.

So now you’re looking at a hybrid installation, Word 2002 and Excel 2002, but older versions of Outlook and Photo. On XP Pro OS, I installed Office 2003, over 2000; then uninstalled 2003, because it’s so clunky and dysfunctional; then installed 2002; then uninstalled Outlook 2002, then reinstalled ONLY Outlook 2000 (to a different directory). Works well, and all my overrides of the defaults, still work. Will do the same for Photo 2000, later. I always prefer the full version of the software to upgrades. I hope you know, that even the upgrade version IS a full version. But then you might have copyright concerns later. Best to buy each ‘upgrade’ as a full version, so you can continue to separately use the old version, on some other machine. Here, you’ve seen how that might be needful.

Alternative is to have one machine with 2000, and the other with 2002. So my XP Pro machine, has the above hybrid; my XP Home OS netbook, still has Office 2003; which was installed over Office 2000. My other XP Home desktop, has Office 2002 installed over 2000. And an old Win98SE laptop, still has 2000. In short, to assure backwards-compatibility, I have multiple computers from 286 forward; these run on DOS, Win98SE, XP. And in case I need it, I have the older programs, too – like Lotus, Multimate, Word Perfect, Word 97, etc. Still have Win95 OS, too. Even, Win 3.1 and 3.11.

This way, you can read files from older software going all the way back to the 1980’s. You know: when Noah was born. :)