Installing PowerPoint XP

[Lloyd Lindsay]

Hi:

I currently have Office 2000 on my Win 98 computer and would like to
install Office XP Professional on top of it.

Will the default directories for my PowerPoint 2000 data files remain
in the same directories (folders)?

Over the years I kept many pictures, sounds, and animations in the
Clip Gallery version 5.0. I understand that Office XP uses a
different system called Clip Organizer. Will Office XP recognize the
Clip Gallery items on my hard drive that worked with my MS Office 2000
program?

I intend to do the full installation. Are there any other PowerPoint
issues I should be aware of?

 

[Echo S]

Hi, Lloyd.

Hi:

I currently have Office 2000 on my Win 98 computer and would like to
install Office XP Professional on top of it.

Will the default directories for my PowerPoint 2000 data files remain
in the same directories (folders)?

You're talking about the installation directories, right? Not the
folders where your presentations and other files are?

Assuming installation directories locations, I'm not sure, but I think
they may be in the same place by default. To be safe, I'd recommend
doing a custom install and choosing to install Office XP into a
different folder. So, for instance, if Office 2000 is installed in
C:\Program Files\MS Office, I'd install Office XP to something like
C:\Program Files\Office XP. You'll have the option to change that path
when you do the custom install.

And another assumption -- that's assuming that you want to install
Office XP alongside Office 2000. If not, you can still use the custom
install and put Office XP in the same place that Office 2000 was. I'd
first uninstall Office 2000 myself instead of letting Office XP do it
for me, though.

Over the years I kept many pictures, sounds, and animations in the
Clip Gallery version 5.0. I understand that Office XP uses a
different system called Clip Organizer. Will Office XP recognize the
Clip Gallery items on my hard drive that worked with my MS Office 2000
program?

Yes, Clip Organizer will recognize the Clip Gallery items you already
have (you'll have to make Clip Organizer find them after you install
it), but it won't recognize the keywords and catalogs those older clips
have. (I know, I know, don't shoot the messenger!)
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;EN-US;Q281858 is not terribly
well worded wrt the fact that the keywords won't be recognized, but it
does tell how to have Organizer add your old clips. (It specifies
"user-defined clips," but the upshot is that you'd have to add all the
keywords manually into the Clip Organizer.)

To work around this, assuming that you intend to uninstall Office 2000
before installing Office XP, you could just not uninstall the Clip
Gallery when you do the uninstall. Put your Office 2000 install CDs in,
do an add/remove, and remove everything else.

Or you could try to make sure that Office XP doesn't remove your Clip
Gallery when it installs. I don't think that's a specific option in the
custom install, though, so you'd probably have to tell Office XP not to
uninstall PPT and Word 2000 in order to keep Clip Gallery. Even then, I
can't guarantee that would keep Clip Gallery.

Or probably easiest is to go ahead and uninstall all of Office 2000,
install Office XP, and then install Clip Gallery using a custom install
of Office 2000. I've been told that you should be able to install the
old Clip Gallery alongside Office XP (and the new Clip Organizer) with
no problems.

I intend to do the full installation. Are there any other PowerPoint
issues I should be aware of?

I would recommend uninstalling Office 2000 and running a registry eraser
before installing Office XP. See
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00297.htm for erasers. But that's
just me. Office XP does uninstall Office 2000 if you want it to, but I
don't know how "clean" a job it does.

If you're considering installing Office XP alongside Office 2000, know
that if you use Outlook, you can't have two versions of Outlook on your
system.

There are sometimes issues with Office XP service pack 2 and Norton
AntiVirus. See
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q328613
Disabling the NAV Office plug-in corrects this, though.

If you have lots of old Organization charts in your presentations, you
may run into trouble there. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=293615
has specifics.

I'm sure there's other stuff, but that's all I can think of right now.

 

[Lloyd Lindsay]

Hi Echo:

Thanks for getting back to me on a Sunday, no less.

Hi, Lloyd.



You're talking about the installation directories, right? Not the
folders where your presentations and other files are?

Actually, I'm not talking about the installation directories, but
where my Presentations are currently kept as well as my Word
documents, Excel spreadsheets, and my Outlook data files (*.pst).

Assuming installation directories locations, I'm not sure, but I think
they may be in the same place by default. To be safe, I'd recommend
doing a custom install and choosing to install Office XP into a
different folder. So, for instance, if Office 2000 is installed in
C:\Program Files\MS Office, I'd install Office XP to something like
C:\Program Files\Office XP. You'll have the option to change that path
when you do the custom install.

Actually, I only want the current XP version on my computer... less
confusion that way.

And another assumption -- that's assuming that you want to install
Office XP alongside Office 2000. If not, you can still use the custom
install and put Office XP in the same place that Office 2000 was. I'd
first uninstall Office 2000 myself instead of letting Office XP do it
for me, though.

Actually, during the installation process Office XP will ask me if I
want to uninstall Office 2000, and I'll answer yes.

Yes, Clip Organizer will recognize the Clip Gallery items you already
have (you'll have to make Clip Organizer find them after you install
it), but it won't recognize the keywords and catalogs those older clips
have. (I know, I know, don't shoot the messenger!)
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;EN-US;Q281858 is not terribly
well worded wrt the fact that the keywords won't be recognized, but it
does tell how to have Organizer add your old clips. (It specifies
"user-defined clips," but the upshot is that you'd have to add all the
keywords manually into the Clip Organizer.)

To put it mildly, sometimes it's better to start from scratch. But,
if during the install it gives me an option to keep the Clip Gallery,
I'll say yes. I would have no reason not to.
I'll keep you posted to let you know whether it was smooth or a
disaster. One thing I am doing is to disable Norton Anti-Virus and
Internet Security and set them to not load up when booting up.

Once Office XP has been fully installed and running, I'll turn them on
and reset them to load at Start Up.

 

[Echo S]

Hi Echo:

Thanks for getting back to me on a Sunday, no less.

Actually, I'm not talking about the installation directories, but
where my Presentations are currently kept as well as my Word
documents, Excel spreadsheets, and my Outlook data files (*.pst).

Ah, gotcha. Those folders should be fine. Installing/uninstalling Office
shouldn't mess with your data files.

Actually, I only want the current XP version on my computer... less
confusion that way.

You're right, your life will be much easier with just one version to

Actually, during the installation process Office XP will ask me if I
want to uninstall Office 2000, and I'll answer yes.

Yes, it will, and yup, you can do that.

To put it mildly, sometimes it's better to start from scratch. But,
if during the install it gives me an option to keep the Clip Gallery,
I'll say yes. I would have no reason not to.

Cool. If you don't have that option (and I seem to recall you won't, but
I can't say for sure), you can always reinstall Clip Gallery later if
you decide you want it back.

I'll keep you posted to let you know whether it was smooth or a
disaster. One thing I am doing is to disable Norton Anti-Virus and
Internet Security and set them to not load up when booting up.

Disabling your antivirus is a must when installing programs (as you
obviously know!), and it sounds as if you've done your homework. You'll
probably be just fine.

Oh, you might want to check with the Outlook folks to make sure things
with your PST file will be okay. I don't recall anything specific there
which might be a problem, but I don't know a whole lot about Outlook.

 

[Lloyd Lindsay]

Thanks for your help

I'll pass on my experience in upgrading from Office 2000 to Office XP
Professional.

1. At first the MS Office XP installation kept giving me an error
saying that certain Windows drivers were not current enough. So I
went to MS support on the Web to find out what all the gobbledygook
meant and how I could resolve the problem.

2. After wasting time searching MS support, I found a solution that
told me to run a certain program already on my Office XP CD that would
install the newer drivers. It would have been nice for MS to tell me
this during the installation instead of giving me a cryptic message
and making me waste time searching the Web. <crying and laughing at
the same time>.

3. When I tried again, everything went fine --- except it forgot to
install Access even though I selected a complete install. So I went
back to customize and found that MS had it set not to install. I
activated the install for Access and had no problem.

4. Everything went well after that up to a point. The good news was
that as I went into each Office program such as PowerPoint, Outlook
etc., Office XP found my data files for the programs and I did not
have to go searching for them on my hard drives.

5. Now the bad PowerPoint I had waited until MS ironed out a
lot of bugs in Office XP before installing it. And, I'm happy I did.

When I first ran Powerpoint, it ran very fast, but my Presentations
were horrible.... jagged text, distorted pictures, etc. But,
installing SP1 and SP2 for Office XP corrected everything in
PowerPoint and I'm happy now. <smiling>.

I do pity the people who had to suffer until MS released the two
service packs.

Thanks again.