MS Office 2003 and 2016 on same laptop

Tony Vella · 18 Sep 2017

I have been using MS Office 2003 for many years but I have been convinced for security reasons to upgrade to a newer version. So I bought a 2016. My question now is: Do I have to uninstall 2003 before installing 2016? I ask because if I don't like 2016 I intend to revert to 2003 and I don't want to go through the trouble of uninstalling 2003 and then reinstalling it all over. Thanks in advance for all help/opinions/advice.

Plankton · 18 Sep 2017

You can't have two sets of MS office installed at the same system. So you will have to uninstall 2003 and then install 2016. I'm running 2016 and like it alot better then 2010 or 2013. I think you will to.

Tony Vella · 19 Sep 2017

Thank you very much for the info., Plankton. Now it's just a matter of my remembering to reset the "default saving location" when I install the 2016. (Hope I won't have a senior moment and forget). I don't want anything saved "up in the air" so saving locally is my ideal. Thanks again.

Berton · 19 Sep 2017

Actually one can have 2 different editions of many programs but in the case of Microsoft Office be sure to do a Custom install putting the last install in a different location or Folder. Also, Office 2010 is the first to be available as either 32-bit or 64-bit. I'd go with the 32-bit version. I had Office 2003 and when I got Office 2010 64-bit I had to uninstall 2003 which kinda hurt, wanted to keep FrontPage 2003 which was discontinued but technology marches on. And between the 2 editions there may be issues with Outlook more than the other applications.

Try3 · 19 Sep 2017

Tony,

The problem of keeping older versions of Office does not extend to Office 2010, Office 2007, 2003, ...

In other words, you can keep Office 2003 if you really want to [but I am not trying to imply that I understand why you would want to].
Most Office 2016 installations will, however, remove the whole of Office 2013 because they are both "Click to run" applications [there are some exceptions, some alternative "MSI" installations of Office 2013 & a few for Office 2016 that would not suffer from this limitation].

See these reports by users who have both Office 2016 & an older Office version - U ninstall older Office versions, Office 365 2016, Install Office 2016 or Office 365 without removing Office 2013 [which also refers to 2003, 2007 & 97 further on down], Should I uninstall Office 2003 programs before installing 2016 Office Note that, in that forum, you will see the replies that have been marked as Answers straightaway but will have to click on Replies underneath them to see all the other responses.

Use the advice of Graham Mayor & Rohn007 in this thread - Installation of Office 2007, 2010 and 2013 on same PC [both Graham & Rohn are highly competent contributors to that forum].

More generally, you can search that forum using, for example, install office 2003 and office 2016 but their search engine has recently been improved [almost to the point of uselessness] and it was never much good in the first place because it has suffered from years of abuse by Microsoft franchisees marking each other's rubbish replies as Answers.

Having said all that -

Office 2003 in Windows 10 can suffer from compatibility problems as well being unsupported & therefore a security vulnerability. There are some references to Office 2003 in A look at running older versions of Microsoft Office on Windows 10 - Forum article that may or may not be useful.
Office file passwords [passwords to open the files] in Office 2003 are not even worth the time it takes to put them on as the security model was fatally flawed. Office 2007 is significantly better and Office 2010 onwards are excellent.

Best of luck,
Denis

Tony Vella · 19 Sep 2017

Once again, thank you all very much for your valuable advice. Even at my age one can learn something new every day.