Experience with 2003 & 2007 on same computer?

[JoeU2004]

I have Office/Excel 2003 on Win XP SP3.

I would like to install (just) Excel 2007 (not Office 2007) on the same
computer (standalone laptop).

I have found a 2008 posting with a reference to an MS KB that suggests this
is possible as long as 2007 products are installed after 2003 products,
which would obviously be the case for me.

But that is not always the complete story.

Also, I am not an expert with Win XP and Office installations. I only get
them pre-installed on new computers that I purchase. So I want to be sure
that if I can install just Excel 2007 on the same computer with Office/Excel
2003, it is virtually turn-key and idiot-proof.

Can anyone share their personal experiences with doing what I want to do?

Any gotchas that I need to be aware of?

(Besides being sure that I don't use the default path when installing Excel
2007.)

Do Excel 2003 and 2007 share Registry keys?

Will IE6 continue to use Excel 2003, for example when I download CSV data
from an online bank account?

Will Win XP continue to use Excel 2003 when I click on a ".csv" and ".xls"
file?

Will installing Excel 2007 after 2003 impact the VBA that I access when I
press alt+F11 in Excel 2003?

Will some VBA (same or different) be available when I press alt+F11 in Excel
2007 if I install only Excel 2007?

(I don't know if VBA is integrated with Excel code, or if it is installed
separately. I know that there is a separate VB product. I don't think I'm
asking about that.)

Will I be able to uninstall Excel 2007 without affecting Office/Excel 2003?
Are there any gotchas to be aware of?

(Please answer the last paragraph only if you have personal experience doing
so.)

I can deal with issues involving sharing files between Excel 2007 and Office
2003 products. That is not a problem for me. I will probably use Excel
2007 just for isolated experiments.

I am only concerned about system-wide issues that might arise -- things that
might break or work differently after installing (just) Excel 2007.

TIA.

 

[Bob Phillips]

I have 2007 and 2003 on the same machine (as well as 2000), no problem.

Just make sure that you install it in a separate directory, and don't opt
for the upgrade option.

It has its own registry keys, so no problem there. I do find it very
difficult to know which version a spreadsheet will open in, it is never as
simple as .xls in 2p003, .xlsm in 2007 (I do have the compatibility pack
installed). I don't use IE6, I use Firefox, but it is the same with files I
download, I never know which version.

VBA will exist in each version, and can be accessed with Alt-F11, so you can
have separate VBIDEs open. VBA is exactly the same in 2007, but the Excel
object model has changed, so not everything works as it did.

 

[Mike H]

Hi,

I recently installed E2007 (Enterprise edition) alongside E2003 and have to
confess I'm still very dubious about any benefits of the upgrade. I
completely fail to understand why we now have the ribbon which no doubt will
become intuative but seems to me to be change for it's own sake. We changed
it because we can seems to be the Microsoft Philosophy.

The main problem I've encountered is my use of personal.xls. The problem may
be caused by my lack of understanding. Initially E2007 sucessfully found
P.XLS in my office 11 installation folder and opened it sucessfully until I
changed it with E2007. Following that every time I opened E2007 I got an
error message telling me P.XLS was corrupt. To get around the problem I
renamed it P.XLSB (which is the name E2007 uses) and my problem was cured but
now unfortunately E2003 won't open the file. It seems to me that Microsoft
could/should have made E2007 backwards compatible with P.XLS because now I
have to put up with 2 versions which may/will become out of synch.

Apart from this the 2 versions happily reside on the same PC as long as you
specify at installation that you are doing a new installation and not an
upgrade to E2003.

Will Win XP continue to use Excel 2003 when I click on a ".csv" and ".xls"
file?

NO. It will use e2007 and open your E2003 Excel files in compatability mode.
You can of course still use 'Open with' and specify 2003.

Will IE6 continue to use Excel 2003, for example when I download CSV data
from an online bank account?

I download my bank details and they now go to 2007 by default but there may
be a workaround.

Will installing Excel 2007 after 2003 impact the VBA that I access when I
press alt+F11 in Excel 2003?

Will some VBA (same or different) be available when I press alt+F11 in Excel
2007 if I install only Excel 2007?

There are no changes (I can see) to VBA in either of the versions and I've
had no issues since the e2007 installation.

Hope this gives some insight.

Mike

 

[JoeU2004]

I have 2007 and 2003 on the same machine
(as well as 2000), no problem.

Thanks. Very helpful information.

I do find it very difficult to know which version
a spreadsheet will open in

Can you elaborate? Surely it is not random. (Famous last words.)

In Win XP, I believe there is a way to associate specific applications with
specific extensions. (Folder Options control > File Types.) Can't you
assign Excel 2003 to "xls" and "csv" (and perhaps others) and Excel 2007 to
"xlsm"?

Not sure if browers pay attention to those File Types assignments, though.
The architecture has never been clear to me, e.g. how Excel appears to be in
an IE window instead of its own.


----- original message -----

 

[Chip Pearson]

I have 4 versions (2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007) of Office installed on
my main machine, and they all play well together. The only restriction
of significance is that you can have only one version of Outlook
installed, but this doesn't apply to your situation. If you are
writing code-behind workbooks in NET, you'll have problems associating
the right typelib with your application, but if you aren't doing so,
or don't know what code-behind means, this will not affect you.

Do Excel 2003 and 2007 share Registry keys?

Generally, each version of Excel uses its own set of registry keys.
COM add-ins are listed in the version neutral key for Excel, so the
will be registered regardless of the version in use. This is generally
a good thing, unless you have CAIs that won't work in 2007.
It is quite possible that certain add-ins use the same registry keys
regardless of what version is hosting the add-in. Depending on what
those keys do, this is either a blessing or a curse. Excel 2003 write
is values to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0
while Excel 2007 uses
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0

Any gotchas that I need to be aware of?

When you do the install, be sure to the "keep older versions" option.
By default, the installer will remove the previous version unless told
not to.

Your xls file association may be changed by the installer to point to
2007 rather than 2003. Therefore, if you double-click an xls file icon
in Explorer, it will open the file in 2007 rather than 2003.

If you're feeling intrepid, you can use RegEdit to change the entry in
HKCR to point xls to 2003. If you don't know what you're doing with
the registry, do go and play around. RegEdit has no "undo" or "close
without saving" option. Everything is live and if you screw something
up, problems will arise, from minor annoyances all the way to being
unable to start Windows.

You can also use /regserver to restore the xls file association back
to 2003. However, this may change other setting that you don't want to
change. Even in the worst case, both 2003 and 2007 will work, but you
may lose some custom settings. Close all applications, go to the
Windows Start menu, choose Run, and enter the following:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Excel.exe" /regserver

and click OK. The quotes should be entered as shown, and there is a
space character after the last quote before the / character, and no
space following the / character. You may need to change the path to
Excel.exe. To find the correct path, open XL 2003, open VBA, CTRL G to
display the Immediate window, and enter the following and the press
ENTER:

?Application.Path

That is the folder in which Excel.exe resides. Append "\Excel.exe" to
this path to get the full file name, as required with /regserver, of
Excel.exe.

Will some VBA (same or different) be available when I press alt+F11 in Excel
2007 if I install only Excel 2007?

Even if you install just Excel (not the entire Office suite), you'll
get nearly all the libraries you need. Of course, you won't get, for
example, the PowerPoint libraries, but you'll get all the shared
libraries (Scripting, XML, ADO, etc).

Will installing Excel 2007 after 2003 impact the VBA that I access when I
press alt+F11 in Excel 2003?

99.9% of code that works in XL2003 will work without modification in
XL2007. While the Excel object model changes from one version to the
next, the VBA language itself hasn't changed since VBA6 (Office 2000)
and the editor hasn't changed since it was introduced in Office 97, so
you'll be using the same old VBA (and whether that is good news or
heartbreakingly bad news is a matter of opinion).

Will IE6 continue to use Excel 2003, for example when I download CSV data
from an online bank account?

I assume that IE6 uses whatever program is associated with the "csv"
extension. After installation, this association might point to 2007,
not 2003. You can restore it back to 2003 by using the /regserver
switch, as described above.

Will I be able to uninstall Excel 2007 without affecting Office/Excel 2003?
Are there any gotchas to be aware of?

I've done scores of reinstallations with all the different versions of
Office on various machines with various operating systems, and
generally speaking, you can uninstall 2007 without damaging your 2003
install. Any problems that might arise can be solved by:
1) Running Excel 2003 with the /regserver switch as described above,
or,
2) Using Detect And Repair on the Help menu in XL2003.

(I don't know if VBA is integrated with Excel code, or if it is installed
separately. I know that there is a separate VB product. I don't think I'm
asking about that.)

"VB" comes in many flavors. VB Script, used for scripting shell
operations and html in web pages. VB6, the last version of "classic"
VB, now considered quite obsolete (but clung to desperately, almost as
if a cult, by a few hold outs who can't embrace change), VBA, which
exists internal to an application such as Excel and doesn't exist as a
stand-alone product, and VBNET a/k/a VB2008, which is the "real" VB
for the NET framework. Upgrading to XL 2007 will not change any of
these configurations that you might have installed.

If you are developing workbooks that will be distributed to users who
do not have Excel 2007, I would recommend that you use 2003 for the
development effort. You can maintain compatibility if you use 2007,
but a few things may fall through the cracks. As a general rule,
always develop code in the earliest version that you must support.

I am only concerned about system-wide issues that might arise -- things that
might break or work differently after installing (just) Excel 2007.

I can't give you a guarantee that you won't have any problems at all,
but any problems that might arise are minor and can be fixed quite
easily manually or with /regserver. (As you might have guessed by now,
/regserver can absolve you of any number of sins).

Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
Excel Product Group, 1998 - 2010
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com
(email on web site)

 

[JoeU2004]

I recently installed E2007 (Enterprise edition) alongside E2003

Thanks for all the information. Very useful.

and have to
confess I'm still very dubious about any benefits of the upgrade.
I completely fail to understand why we now have the ribbon

I feel the same way, sight unseen. I completely object with the Excel
team's philosophy of not providing a "classic" alternative.

But I'm not interested in Excel 2007 for "real" usage; just for
experimenting and answering questions. So it can be a pile of sh*t for all
I care.

The main problem I've encountered is my use of personal.xls.

This is disconcerting to me, even though I do not currently use
personal.xls. But it sounds like the "xlsb" and "xls" files can coexist,
with Excel 2007 using "xlsb" and Excel 2003 using "xls". Right?

That would suit my purposes, although I understand your concern about having
to maintain two files.

NO. It will use e2007 and open your E2003 Excel files in compatability
mode.
You can of course still use 'Open with' and specify 2003.


I download my bank details and they now go to 2007 by default but there
may
be a workaround.

Damn! That is unacceptable. Thanks for that heads-up.

Have you tried assigning Excel 2003 to "xls" and "csv" and Excel 2007 to
"xlsm" extensions in the File Options > File Types control options?


----- original message -----

 

[JoeU2004]

I have 4 versions (2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007) of Office
installed on my main machine, and they all play well together.

Thanks for all the insights, especially....

You can also use /regserver to restore the xls file
association back to 2003. [...etc...]

That's comforting.

I can't give you a guarantee that you won't have
any problems at all

Perish the thought! ;-)


----- original messages -----

 

[Mike H]

Hi,

This is disconcerting to me, even though I do not currently use
personal.xls. But it sounds like the "xlsb" and "xls" files can coexist,
with Excel 2007 using "xlsb" and Excel 2003 using "xls". Right?

Have you tried assigning Excel 2003 to "xls" and "csv" and Excel 2007 to
"xlsm" extensions in the File Options > File Types control options?

Not quite. They do coexist peacefully but by default .xls files will open
with 2007 in compatibility mode. Initially using 'Open with' I did create a
sucessful association between .xls and 2003 ( and could no doubt do the same
with .csv) but as it is my intention to migrate to 2007 I removed this
association.

As others have noted there is nothing really going to bite you on the leg
'Providing' you preserve the original insstallation of e2003. It will cost
you more becuase you will have to purchase the full edition and not the
upgrade but beware even with the full edition you can still do an upgrade
installation if your not careful.

Turning back to the subject of the ribbon apart from a few bells and
whistles there is no difference and digging can get you back to the standard
e2003 menus. as an example click the 'Number group' on the Home tab and you
see various format options. Drill down by clicking 'More Number formats' and
you get the Classic E2003 cell formating menu. View tab and macros is exactly
the same and I'm sure there are more.

I seem to be in moan mode but I'm not completely unloving of it, I like the
developer tab for working with VBA and the Office button is very intuative.
The inclusion of ATP is nice

mike

 

[Chip Pearson]

In Win XP, I believe there is a way to associate specific applications with
specific extensions. (Folder Options control > File Types.) Can't you
assign Excel 2003 to "xls" and "csv" (and perhaps others) and Excel 2007 to
"xlsm"?

I believe you are correct (it has been a while since I've used Windows
XP for anything except backwards compatibility testing), but that
option was removed in Vista, or they hid it very, very well.
Apparently, it confused users and too many of them screwed up their
file associations. Pity, because if you knew what you were doing, it
was easy to use.

Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
Excel Product Group, 1998 - 2009
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com
(email on web site)

 

[Bob Phillips]

Can you elaborate? Surely it is not random. (Famous last words.)

In Win XP, I believe there is a way to associate specific applications
with specific extensions. (Folder Options control > File Types.) Can't
you assign Excel 2003 to "xls" and "csv" (and perhaps others) and Excel
2007 to "xlsm"?

Not sure if browers pay attention to those File Types assignments, though.
The architecture has never been clear to me, e.g. how Excel appears to be
in an IE window instead of its own.

I am sure it is not random, it is just that I have never figured out the
pattern. If I have no Excel open, double-clicking any file type seems to
fire up Excel 2007, but if I have them both open (which I usually do), I am
not able to predict which they will open in. As such I tend to drag the file
into the version I want.

I have all of my file types setup correctly (I use XP), so it should work. I
am convinced it is something to do with the compatibility pack, but I am not
sure what.

As to browsers, I am sure I could get it better if I messed about with MIME
types, but life is too short.

 

[Bob Phillips]

Mike, the old accelerator keys still work in Excel 2007 - Alt-T-I brings up
the addin dialog for example.

 

[Bob Phillips]

That reminds me. I have a Personal.xls and a Personal.xlsb, both open in
both versions (sic!).

 

[jobowo]

[Clipped the question and replies]

I installed Office 2007 after Office XP on a both an XP machine and on a
Vista machine.

Haven't experienced any problems yet flipping between versions of Excel but
Word 2007 is virtually a dud...with 2 versions installed...and perhaps with
only 1. The program crashes/freezes frequently and goes through a lengthy
re-confliguration if I use Word 2002 in between. Quite frankly I don't
believe Microsoft should be making the claim of compatibility until they have
fixed this.

I realize that you've made no mention of Word but thought I'd confirm that
Excel seems to work fine.

 

[BobTheDrinker]

You can select the file association by right-clicking on the file you want to
open, and then select "Open With...". When you select the appropriate
application for the file, make sure you select the "Always use this program
to....." check box.