Office 2003 and 2007 on same machine

[Stan Brown]

Hi. I'm posting to a Word an an Excel group, because I suspect and
hope the answer is the same but fear it might not be.

At work yesterday I installed Office 2007 (except Outlook) on the
same computer where I had office 2003. I'm still able to open and run
Excel 2003 and Word 2003, but when I double-click on an .RTF or .DOC
or .XLS file the 2007 program opens.

I want to retain the 2003 file associations for all file types that
Office 2003 can cope with. I thought I could do this with "Open
With..." and selecting the 2003 programs through browsing, but
unfortunately Windows ignores that selection.

My question: how can I set things up so that Office 2007 opens .docx
and .xlsx files when I double-click them, but Office 2003 opens .doc
and .rtf and .xls files when I double-click them?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
A: Maybe because some people are too annoyed by top posting.
Q: Why do I not get an answer to my question(s)?
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top posting such a bad thing?

 

[Gordon]

Hi. I'm posting to a Word an an Excel group, because I suspect and
hope the answer is the same but fear it might not be.

At work yesterday I installed Office 2007 (except Outlook) on the
same computer where I had office 2003. I'm still able to open and run
Excel 2003 and Word 2003, but when I double-click on an .RTF or .DOC
or .XLS file the 2007 program opens.

I want to retain the 2003 file associations for all file types that
Office 2003 can cope with. I thought I could do this with "Open
With..." and selecting the 2003 programs through browsing, but
unfortunately Windows ignores that selection.

My question: how can I set things up so that Office 2007 opens .docx
and .xlsx files when I double-click them, but Office 2003 opens .doc
and .rtf and .xls files when I double-click them?

I don't think you can...as 2007 deals with 2003 and prior documents anyway,
why would you want to?

 

[Bob Flanagan]

If you right click on an XLS file and select Properties, you can change the
Open association. Repeat for other file types as needed.

Bob Flanagan
Macro Systems
144 Dewberry Drive
Hockessin, Delaware, U.S. 19707

Phone: 302-234-9857, cell 302-584-1771
http://www.add-ins.com
Productivity add-ins and downloadable books on VB macros for Excel

 

[Bernard Liengme]

If you use Start ->Word 2007 to open a file, then later you use Start->Word
2003 there will a long and annoying pause while Office does some
reinstalling stuff. This is not a problem with the two versions of Excel
best wishes

 

[Graham Mayor]

The two Word versions share some registry entries, including file
association, so you need to stop Word 2007 from grabbing the entries when it
starts. See http://www.gmayor.com/Toolbars_in_word_2007.htm

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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[Terry Farrell]

You might like to read the thread started by John dated 22/02/2008 @ 01:31
(UK GMT date + Time) titled 'Using both Word 2003 and Word 2007 in Open With
....' which gives you several solutions to the problem.

 

[Stan Brown]

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:42:11 -0500 from Bob Flanagan

If you right click on an XLS file and select Properties, you can
change the Open association. Repeat for other file types as needed.

Thanks for replying, Bob, but this does not work. I go through
exactly the steps I would for a regular program, everything appears
fine, but when I click the last OK the association is still for the
Office 2007 version.

There's something about MS-Office programs that bypasses the usual
mechanism for file associations. You can see it also if you right-
click one of the Start menu entries and select Properties: instead of
showing a file path in the Target box it just says Microsoft Office
Professional Edition 2003 or similar.

 

[Stan Brown]

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:47:05 -0400 from Bernard Liengme

If you use Start ->Word 2007 to open a file, then later you use Start->Word
2003 there will a long and annoying pause while Office does some
reinstalling stuff. This is not a problem with the two versions of Excel

Thanks for replying, Bernard, but I'm not sure how that relates to my
problem. I have Word 2003 and 2007 plus Excel 2003 and 2007 on my
machine. When I double-click an .rtf or .doc or .xls file I want it
to open in the 2003 version.

Thanks!

 

[Terry Farrell]

I believe that the only reliable solution is to add the appropriate exe to
the Send To menu. Then you can right-click a file and choose Send To and
select the appropriate Word or Excel that you want to open.

 

[Stan Brown]

Thanks to Graham and Terry for your responses. I haven't followed up
because the system in question is at work, and I've been off all week
with the flu.

As soon as I can get in and try the suggestions I'll post a response.

 

[JoAnn Paules]

Completely off-topic:

Take care of yourself! It seems that everyone at work has been sick and it
hit me last weekend. I was out today because I didn't feel like sharing my
germs for another day.