Office 2003 in Windows 10

OK, I realize this is old software, and Microsoft no longer supports it, but it mainly still works well. Equally importantly for me, it is more user friendly than current versions and still does the job.

In fact, through forums like this, Office 2003 users and helpful experts and contributors have been able to employ workarounds or fixes which have vastly extended the life of this fine software.

For me, Word 2003, Excel 2003 and Outlook 2003 work fine with Windows 10 without Compatiblity Mode, with a few exceptions. Can anybody help with these?:

1. Under Open, Save or Save As, the folder My Recent Documents is always blank. Maybe this is because Word, etc. is looking for a folder containing recent docs which is no longer active under Win 10. Is there any way to point Word, etc. to this new Win 10 folder or any other fix so Recent Documents will populate? What folder are Recent Docs located in Win 10 and is this different from Win 8 and previous under which this function worked fine for Office 2003.

2. Similarly, is there any way for Word, etc. to be programmed to use the Win 10 File Explorer format for Open, Save and Save As, ie, with the Quick Access etc. icons along the left side? Right now, Word, etc. uses a very old style of File Explorer without Quick Access, etc.

3. The Autocomplete function (for auto-completing email addresses in the TO box of new or replied message) in Outlook 2003 is unusable in Win 10 when you have chosen that you want to use Word 2003 as your email editor. The program stalls or sometimes crashes when trying to use autocomplete. This mysteriously arose in Win 8 and now 10. If you use the native Outlook 2003 email editor, then Autocomplete functions normally, but there are many features of using Word 2003 as email editor not available on the Outlook 2003 email editor. Any suggestions to solve this so we can still use Word 2003 as email editor in Outlook 2003 with Autocomplete working under Win 10?

Any input on 1 2 or 3? REGEDITS are ok or anything else that an intermediate user/techie can accomplish.

Many thanks for your responses.

global said:

it is more user friendly than current versions

I would argue that it isn't more user-friendly. I used to work in a 30 person company full of non tech savvy people. They fought the change from 2003 to 2007 because if the ribbon interface. After a few weeks, they all agreed it was much easier. Options weren't buried in menus anymore, but required less clicks.

Simply put, don't assume different is worse, or that a small learning curve means it is less user friendly.

cereberus said:

In short, answer is really no.

Really you should bite the bullet and upgrade to aa new version - so much slicker now.

Hi there.

Have you thought about running Office 2003 in a VM -- W7 or even XP. By using Host Only networking you don't have to connect the VM to the internet and you can open / write to files on the HOST with Windows explorer(from the VM). Ensure you have the disks / directories enabled as shared though.

Use vmplayer / vbox for free vm software.

Note - upgrading isn't always a matter of overcoming "User Resistance" -- sometimes for small businesses the upgrades can cost a LOT for very little reward - particularly if the users don't tend to use all the bells and whistles in Office.

I'm sure your users aren't creating spreadsheets like this for example !!!! although it will actually work in EXCEL 2003 !!!



Cheers
jimbo

For an individual, Office 2010 can be had for a very cheap cost...legal and cheap.