How would Office 365 affect Office 97/Word 97?

Major Eazy

Major Eazy

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Just out of curiosity

What will happen to my Microsoft Office 97 (including Word 97 and Excel 97) if I were to install Office 365?

Is Office 365 going to sort of found Office 97 and kind of kick it out?

I hoped maybe the age gap between 97 and 365 (roughly 20 years) would mean, 365 fail to recognise Office 97 as an old outdated Office suite, and ends up installing 365 without affecting Word 97.
I also assume that since Word 97 files ends with .doc while 365's Word files use .docx, then Windows 7 could be set up to open .doc in Word 97 and open .docx in Word 356?

I know that Office 365 is supposed to be a subscription services which you use online, but I understand that they also allows you to download and install applications on your PC?
 
It's not recommended to install two versions of Office on the same computer.
Office 365 won't affect your documents, unless you open Office 97 docs in a later version of Office and choose to save in a later file format, which 97 will then not be able to open.

Office 365 allows install off the full Office suite on your computer whilst you have a valid subscription. Within 30 days of subscription expiry, it will stop working although obviously your files aar unaffected.

Lastly, Office 97 has been out of support for a decade and is missing ten years of security patches.
 
landwomble said:
It's not recommended to install two versions of Office on the same computer.
Office 365 won't affect your documents, unless you open Office 97 docs in a later version of Office and choose to save in a later file format, which 97 will then not be able to open.

Office 365 allows install off the full Office suite on your computer whilst you have a valid subscription. Within 30 days of subscription expiry, it will stop working although obviously your files aar unaffected.

Lastly, Office 97 has been out of support for a decade and is missing ten years of security patches.
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What he said.
 
landwomble said:
It's not recommended to install two versions of Office on the same computer.
Office 365 won't affect your documents, unless you open Office 97 docs in a later version of Office and choose to save in a later file format, which 97 will then not be able to open.

Office 365 allows install off the full Office suite on your computer whilst you have a valid subscription. Within 30 days of subscription expiry, it will stop working although obviously your files aar unaffected.

Lastly, Office 97 has been out of support for a decade and is missing ten years of security patches.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, I'm not planning on opening Word 97 or Excel 97 docs in Office 365.

I know it is out of support but I've never had problems with my Word 97.
 
Major Eazy said:
Don't worry, I'm not planning on opening Word 97 or Excel 97 docs in Office 365.

I know it is out of support but I've never had problems with my Word 97.
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Why would you want to keep the old version?

Unless you’re running some complex VBA code that’ll not run in the latest version, there’s no need at all to be using an outdated version of Office.
 
The office 365 versions of Word, Excel, etc, should be able to open the older office format files, the only potential issue I can think of is the one Phil has already mentioned - newer versions are stricter on what macros can do, so could block any yo have st up be default - though I think you can set it to allow them (I've not really done much macro work in office, so can't be sure of this).
 
I’d just started secondary school when Office 97 was new. How old is your computer? Unless it’s as Phil said it’s surely best to update to a newer program? There are free alternatives to Office or you can even use the free Office web apps if you have a Microsoft account. I have 365 and it’s installed on my computers like the old versions of Office.
 
Phil V said:
Why would you want to keep the old version?

Unless you’re running some complex VBA code that’ll not run in the latest version, there’s no need at all to be using an outdated version of Office.
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My Word 97 have never failed me and I don't use macros at all. It works fine, and I do the majority of my documents on Word 97.
 
If you're not needing the old version of 97 for a specific functionality and its only "because it works" basis. Then as others have mentioned, you're really leaving yourself open to security threats. Therefore, its not recommended to keep using it. In my opinion, you're asking for trouble.

Your other questions seem to have been answered otherwise. :)

On the subject of word reliability, Word isn't exactly a program known to crash. Its solid. If you're already paying for O365 it seems a bit pointless to keep with '97 for reliability sake. Sounds like you're more not a fan of change than anything :)
 
Major Eazy said:
My Word 97 have never failed me and I don't use macros at all. It works fine, and I do the majority of my documents on Word 97.
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But it’s Word! It’s not changed significantly, why buy the new version to keep using the old one?
Word 97, 2000, 2003, 2010 and 2013 never failed me (Nor did its pdecessor*), but I’ll soon be replacing it. (I do get a subsidised deal, I’ve not paid full price for all those)

Your question is akin to, ‘I’m getting a D500 and new lens, but my D200 has never let me down, can I continue to use it?’, you’d think someone was daft, buying a vastly improved camera but choosing to use an older inferior one.
(Bear in mind I couldn’t even go back far enough for a practical DSLR, they didn’t really exist when Office 97 launched in 1996)
* I remember it was Office 4.3pro but don’t remember the version no of word.
 
You can install multiple versions of office but windows knows which program to open so will go for the newer. Saying there's no difference is untrue, there's many improvements.
Office 365 install locally depends on the licence you have/monthly subscription. The good news is with those that do, you can install 5 copies on devices.
 
For various reasons*, we have Office 365 plus an older version of Office installed on my wife's PC. It's OK. periodically, the "wrong" version will try to open a file (e.g. the old Office version will try to open a 365 file). Instead of giving a lovely graceful error message, the machine just hangs until you kill wrong office and start right office.


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* FWIW they aren't good reasons. The only good reason for keeping an old version I know of is if you're a *very* heavy user of Excel. The 365 versions can be a bit quirky when they are first released and there's something distinctly odd about the way it uses the processor to run macros.
 
Phil V said:
* I remember it was Office 4.3pro but don’t remember the version no of word.
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Office 4.3, Word 6.0, Excel 5.0, PowerPoint 4.0, Mail 3.2, Access 2.0 - think ive still got it on 1.44 floppys somewhere in the loft- 3 boxes or so of the buggers iirc. Think the same tea chest has a box with Word 2.0, Lotus 123 v3 and a whole pile of MS-DOS disks going back pretty much to the first incarnation. Must hire a skip sometime.
 
TheBigYin said:
Office 4.3, Word 6.0, Excel 5.0, PowerPoint 4.0, Mail 3.2, Access 2.0 - think ive still got it on 1.44 floppys somewhere in the loft- 3 boxes or so of the buggers iirc. Think the same tea chest has a box with Word 2.0, Lotus 123 v3 and a whole pile of MS-DOS disks going back pretty much to the first incarnation. Must hire a skip sometime.
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If I remember correctly it was 27 floppies for 4.3 pro but only 16 without Access (4.2)
 
JonathanRyan said:
For various reasons*, we have Office 365 plus an older version of Office installed on my wife's PC. It's OK. periodically, the "wrong" version will try to open a file (e.g. the old Office version will try to open a 365 file). Instead of giving a lovely graceful error message, the machine just hangs until you kill wrong office and start right office.


-----
* FWIW they aren't good reasons. The only good reason for keeping an old version I know of is if you're a *very* heavy user of Excel. The 365 versions can be a bit quirky when they are first released and there's something distinctly odd about the way it uses the processor to run macros.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't be anything quirky about 365 click to run. It's just a faster release cadence. There were some recent improvements to handle very very large datasets that are only in the O365 version as well.
I would also recommend installing the 64 bit version rather than the 32 bit. It used to be discouraged by MS but we recently walked that back and if you have high DPI screens (which is unlikely in this particular case I guess!) then 64 bit fixes some scenarios where you run out of display buffer on the 32 bit version which can cause some display issues.
 
landwomble said:
Shouldn't be anything quirky about 365 click to run. It's just a faster release cadence.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and sometimes that higher cadence means that "less optimal" behaviour gets out into the wild. Or just simply that you use a spreadsheet one day and the next, the default options for pivot tables have changed and Google hasn't caught up with how to turn them back. It won't affect most users, but if you need to prep some large data for a meeting it helps if you know what version of Excel you will be running on tomorrow.

The 64/32 bit thing is a nightmare. I wouldn't normally blame a software provider but Microsoft kind of invented the problem. See here for example. TL;DR: installing the 64 bit version of a Microsoft product breaks functionality in another Microsoft product because it installs drivers for a 3rd Microsoft product (which many people never use). The work around is to uninstall software you didn't know you had. But of course, the OS fights you every step of the way.

For 99% of users, Office 365 is perfect. It's great for the other 1% too until it does something you don't like - and then it can be handy to have a backup version :)
 
JonathanRyan said:
Yeah, and sometimes that higher cadence means that "less optimal" behaviour gets out into the wild. Or just simply that you use a spreadsheet one day and the next, the default options for pivot tables have changed and Google hasn't caught up with how to turn them back. It won't affect most users, but if you need to prep some large data for a meeting it helps if you know what version of Excel you will be running on tomorrow.

The 64/32 bit thing is a nightmare. I wouldn't normally blame a software provider but Microsoft kind of invented the problem. See here for example. TL;DR: installing the 64 bit version of a Microsoft product breaks functionality in another Microsoft product because it installs drivers for a 3rd Microsoft product (which many people never use). The work around is to uninstall software you didn't know you had. But of course, the OS fights you every step of the way.

For 99% of users, Office 365 is perfect. It's great for the other 1% too until it does something you don't like - and then it can be handy to have a backup version :)
Click to expand...
O365 doesn't install drivers
 
landwomble said:
O365 doesn't install drivers
Click to expand...

Maybe that's the problem........

Actually it's a fairly well documented issue. You could Google it. Even Bing may be able to find you examples.

Either way, we're somewhat off topic. If you want to have 2 copies of Office running then expect some friction. Whether it's worth it or not depends on your use-case.
 
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