Office 97 no longer compatible after 1709 update

MikeinGrange said:

Another contribution to this thread ... I still use Excel 2003, and it works fine for me after the 1709 update.

Why aren't you using the online version of Office? It's free, and it's the latest version.

Paul Bacon said:

Thank you for your explanations and suggestions. I'm sorry to lose the programs but I'll look into your suggestions for replacement.

Thanks for the help!

Hi there

If you still want to use some of these programs run them in a Virtual Machine --that way you can continue to use them indefinitely. Run them say in an XP VM or whatever --they'll continue to work just fine and a VM can share HDD's with the Host system too.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there

If you still want to use some of these programs run them in a Virtual Machine --that way you can continue to use them indefinitely. Run them say in an XP VM or whatever --they'll continue to work just fine and a VM can share HDD's with the Host system too.



Cheers
jimbo

I've never set up a VM. Maybe I should school myself. Thank you.
@Fafhrd That looks interesting, but I'm afraid it's a little over my head. Can I do what you did on my machine and build?

Fafhrd said:

@Paul Bacon - If you have a CD with Office 97 on it, just copy all files to a folder in your users folder, and either just make shortcuts to Winword.exe and Excel.exe to your desktop, or wherever you want the shortcuts to be. I ignore the error messages, they are generally unimportant - to do with Object linking and embedding - which is simplistically about editing one type of Office document from within another type of document, like updating a spreadsheet or presentation from within a Word document.

I do have the CD, so I'll try this.

Alternatively, what I did today was run the Office 97 setup, as a custom setup, making sure I did not add all the clip art samples, Office Assistant (Clippit) and shortcut toolbar , Binder, Bookshelf, old Outlook versions, fast-find, and so-on, just the main programs and their associated productivity add-ons that I wanted. That selection process was the longest part of the operation - Setup took less than five minutes to complete, overall, for just over 100MB of installed files. The Office 2007 compatibility format converters take longer to install, I think.

What you're describing here is exactly what I did. I chose Word and Excel and nothing else. They were "successfully installed." When I tried opening the programs, Word opened without issue, but Excel would open, then close.

Office 97 is an amazingly portable office suite, with a tiny footprint and amazing speed by today's standards

I still love and use it all the time!
.

Thanks for your time. I appreciate it!

Just an update...

We had Office 2000 kicking around here, collecting dust, so I tried that. That successfully installed and opens without issue, so I'm back up and running. I can now open all my Word and Excel files.

I do have to open the docs from my networked XP desktop computer from within the program, but that had been the behavior before, using '97. All Word and Excel files residing on my remote Windows 10 laptop (into which I installed Office 2000) open normally with a dbl click.

I appreciate the help here. I went around and around looking at the suggested options, but I really did want to continue with Microsoft's Word and Excel.

I wouldn't mind paying for the newer versions, but I just don't use them enough to justify a yearly subscription. I would just like to install something I can use without having to be online, or having to jump through hoops to continue using. Just like in the "old" days.... :)

Thanks again.

BugMeister said:

- Happy Birthday, Paul..

Wow, thank you very much! :)