Solved: Running 2 versions of office on same computer

[Danny]

I am wanting to put both office 2003 and 2007 on my computer (with vista). Is this possible? Any tips or potential problems?
Thanks

[Bob Phillips]

I have both on my laptop, and as long as you don't opt for the upgrade option when you install 2007, choose a separate directory, you should be fine.

You may find problems with personal.xls, I have a personal.xls and a personal.xlsm, and both get opened in both versions when I startup, so the first one grabs them, the second opens as read-only. But that is no problem for me. I have also installed the 2003 compatibility pack so that I can open 2007 files in 2003.

I have yet to find the rhyme or reason as to which Excel a file gets opened in if I double click an Excel file, it seems arbitrary to me.

[Bob Phillips]

BTW, in case you are thinking aboutr it, two Words is more problemmatical (possible but more issues), and two Outlooks is a no-no.

[Danny]

I have yet to find the rhyme or reason as to which Excel a file gets opened in if I double click an Excel file, it seems arbitrary to me.
Thanks for the info Bob.
So if you open an .xlsx (2007) it may not open in the 2007 version by default, do you specify how to open it each time?

Another possible issue: I have read that the earlier version must be installed first. I currently have 2007 and i am wanting to add 2003. Was this an issue for you? Should i unistall the 2007 then install 2003 and then reinstal 2007?
Another Question..... visual studio 6.0 or 2008 ?

[Bob Phillips]

The opening issue only arises for me when I double-click the file in explorer, in File>Open in the application it works fine of course.

I don't know about installing in order, I installed 2007 on top of 2007. I can't imagine what the issue might be if there were one, I have installed 2000 after 2003 and so on. If it were me, I would install 2003 and see what happens, they can always be uninstalled and re-installed in a different order.

Visula Studio or VS2008. I have both, if you mean by Visual Studio that which contains VB6. Other than that, it depends upon what you want to do with it. I know one guy who use straight VS to develop .Net addins for Excel, whereas I always thought you needed VS2005/VSTA or VS2008 for that.