General discussion

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  • #2294018

    Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

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    by jodygilbert ·

    We’re hoping to find out which version(s) of Microsoft Office are the most prevalent in businesses right now and whether organizations are considering an upgrade. The more we can find out about which version(s) you use, the more we’ll be able to tailor our information and resources to cover specific features, functionality, and implementation and support challenges you’re likely to encounter. And if it turns out that you’re planning an upgrade pretty soon, we can start providing information that will help you get up to speed with the new version, prepare to handle the migration, and help your users stay productive as they make the transition.

    The questions below outline what we’re hoping to learn:

    — What version of Microsoft Office does your organization currently use?

    — If you’re considering an upgrade, when do you plan to implement it? (In the next 3 months, the next 6 months, before the end of the year, etc.)

    — If you are planning an upgrade, which version will it be?

    — If you’ve already upgraded to XP or 2003, what problems have you encountered? What pros and cons can you share from your experiences so far? What specific features or configuration issues could you use help with?

    Any info you can pass along will be very useful.

    Thanks,
    Jody Gilbert, TechRepublic Senior Editor

All Comments

  • Author
    Replies
    • #2692688

      A mixed bag…

      by tomsal ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Mostly we are on 97 still, about 90%.

      Another 8% are using 2000, and the “privileged” few (like my department..lol) 2% are running 2003.

      Those on 2000 have it because when we bought their systems it came with it. Our copies of 2003 our from our MSDN subscriptions.

      But generally speaking, for MOST common office tasks we simply can’t find a strong argument on why to take Word and Excel 97 away from our users to upgrade them to the next version. What they have works fine, so why upgrade?

      It doesn’t help that Microsoft’s licensing is still a joke, still caters way too much to HUGE corporations. The “rules” are to be blunt — “stupid” with their licensing structure. I won’t pay $40,000 just so we have updated copies of Word and Excel with more features that are never used.

      • #2737164

        Same here

        by weze ·

        In reply to A mixed bag…

        Doing developing, I use what ever my clients use. I don’t recommend they update if they don’t need to do it. Mostly use 2000 and XP but prefer 2000 — less problems.

      • #2737153

        A mixed bag also

        by charlie ·

        In reply to A mixed bag…

        95% of our users have Office 97. For the simple functionality they need, the cost of upgrading to Office XP, 2000, or 2003 is not worth it. We reserve the Office 2003 for the tech department.
        Consistency throughout the company would be nice though.

      • #2736749

        A mixed bag

        by orvinabbott ·

        In reply to A mixed bag…

        We have some Open Office.org, some Office 97, some Office 2003, some Office XP. We were sitting on sixty Office 97 licenses for quite sometime and MS wanted to audit us because we hadn’t renewed our upgrade licenses. We were running Open Office, Word Perfect Suite and using the Office 97. We had Intuit (Blue Ocean) Trackit software to do our system audits and were able to document what we had installed, thus preventing the complete audit.

      • #2731190

        Reply To: Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

        by brucepattinson ·

        In reply to A mixed bag…

        Office 2000

      • #2736164

        Still using several versions

        by osumiller ·

        In reply to A mixed bag…

        We use everything from Office 2000 to Office 2003. Most of the users are on Office XP, but there are a few that are still on 2000, and some have started to be migrated to Office 2003. The nicest thing about 2003 is the new Outlook. We just really like the way it does things now, and the new features available in it. I always hated working on Outlook 2000 when a user had started to set up their e-mail the wrong way.

      • #3257142

        Open Office

        by zmk ·

        In reply to A mixed bag…

        I’ve been using Microsoft Office, until MS Office 2000, but after some departments changed to Linux because of the security flaws that Windows XP had, we start to use OpenOffice since its version 1.1.2.
        Right now .. all departments are using (in Windows and Linux), OpenOffice 2.0 (Beta), because it’s a cheap, powerful, and very useful alternative to Ms Office …

        Everything that i used to do in MS Office, i can do now in open office, and some things, i can do with much more quickness or easyly. (Like connecting a DB to a MySQL server for example ..)

        Everyone should try OpenOffice (Beta version or not ..) for various reasons :
        1 – Its free
        2 – Its MS Office Compatible
        3 – Its easy to use
        4 – Its easy to migrate (ex: for older persons its very easy to migrate …)
        5 – The costs with software drop … a lot … try it and calculate the numbers …

        • #3102191

          Ofice 2K – Considering Open Office

          by compuguru ·

          In reply to Open Office

          I am using a copy of office 2K and like most of you haven’t had a good reason to upgrade.

          I agree that MS licensing scheme is stupid and I don’t understand the appearent greed of the company.

          I’ve downloaded and started using open office and like it very much. I will probably ditch MS Office completely in the near future.

          Also considering ditching MS OS’s with the release of Vista. I was really pissed when I bought my first laptop with XP Home to discover that I had to upgrade to Pro to get a development web server, unlike 98 which had Personal Web Server for development.

          In my opinion the last good products MS delivered were Windows 98SE and Office 97 or 2K. SQL Server was ok until the greed of MS licensing went to CAL’s and per processor licensing. It’s just BS. Moving all my DB’s to MySQL…

        • #3273644

          where i get that software

          by ronnie5fer ·

          In reply to Ofice 2K – Considering Open Office

          how i can try with my installer im using the office 2003 intaller for my office in the linux red hat 9 can’t install because he display this error /cdrom/win.exe con’t visualbe in this system

    • #2692647

      Most of my clients have ditched MS office

      by oz_media ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      MOST of my clients have been using Novell Linux and Open Office as opposed to the old MS Office they used to use.

      Absolutely NO compatibility issues, comes included in the Linux fo Desktops install and offers MOST yet not ALL of the tools and features in Office.

      When I was rebuilding my personal box a while back, I left ALL office programs off of it and found that Notepad matches Word pretty good, all except a fwe formatting things I needed. I have installed an older copy of MS Office 2K but mainly use open office on my other PC instead.

      Damn I hae Microsoft mroe every day when I see that all thesse other programs are catching up to the MS Office system while Office BARELY changes at all, just a few minor tweaks and some new MS integrations that don’t really do anything for MOST users.

    • #2692638

      Office 97

      by maxwell edison ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      .
      100 percent Office 97. No reason to upgrade, so why do it?

      • #2692631

        Office XP (not for long)

        by bipolar1 ·

        In reply to Office 97

        100% of our users (minus I.T.) are using Office XP. We are upgrading to Office 2003 this week as we have been testing Office 2003 since it’s release. We are upgrading because of the new features (which we WILL use) and because we upgraded all of our exchange servers to 2003. In tests, the upgrades have not been a problem at all.

    • #2692602

      Office 97

      by thechas ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      At work, we still use Office 97.

      We don’t roll out upgrades.
      The users department would need to purchase a newer version if they felt it was justified.

      At home, I have Office 97 available if needed.

      I stick with my “preferred” Corel Perfect Office 10.

      For my extended family, I usually install the latest version of Open Office.

      There is no justification in spending several hundred dollars just to have the latest “bug-ware” from Microsoft.

      Chas

      • #2692537

        97 and Corel

        by jardinier ·

        In reply to Office 97

        I use 97 and, in case he misses this discussion, I can speak for Colin and say that he prefers Corel and encourages his clients to use it also.

        ACTUALLY, Excel 5 (part of MS Office 4.2) has one feature which has been removed in all more recent versions, and very much to my annoyance.

        In Excel 5, each worksheet can have 8 or more pages, numbered sequentially. From 97 onwards (and probably actually from 95, which I have never used) you are given three pages numbered 1, 2, 3. You can add more pages, but they will be out of numeric order, the additional pages (4, 5, 6 etc) are listed BEFORE 1, 2, 3.

        As I keep spreadsheets of all my expenses in different categories — there may be 5 or 6 in any given category — I am SO GLAD that I had started these with Excel 5, which can be read correctly by Excel 97.

        I am MOST PLEASED to learn that most of you are still using Office 97. Who NEEDS to pay for a new MS Office bundle every 2 – 3 years which just clutters up your system with irrelevant gadgetry?

        Actually MS Word for Windows 2.0, which uses a whole 15 MB of hard disk space, is an excellent and fully comprehensive program.

        • #2692535

          3 tabs???

          by wyrmlord ·

          In reply to 97 and Corel

          Oh come on, please. You can have as few as 1 and as many as you want – when I was deploying MSO to ppl I didn’t much care for, I’d set the default # of tabs in a new worksheet to 999 (but you can keep piling 9 until you kb breaks). 8 is just another option, after all, and once you fix the default, it stays put. Just go to Tools -> Options -> General.

        • #2692527

          Many thanks for the tip …

          by jardinier ·

          In reply to 3 tabs???

          As I only use Excel for my personal spreadsheets, it had not occurred to me to investigate further.

        • #2691128

          Click and drag to move tabs

          by wordworker ·

          In reply to 3 tabs???

          The other things that aorta be obvious is that you can click and drag your tabs into any order you want…. That’s the problem with so many Office users – they run around saying “the software is awful” when they haven’t bothered to learn more than 1% of the features.

        • #2736977

          OK, so I’m a dummy ….

          by jardinier ·

          In reply to Click and drag to move tabs

          when it comes to operating software, and I’m the first to admit it.
          But as I only became involved with computers 5 years ago at the age of 58, I think I’ve done well enough to learn how to build and trouble-shoot the things with no formal training. I even know my way around Macs to a certain degree.

          As for applications like Desktop Publishing and Excel, I have never had time or reason to learn them. But despite this handicap I manage to publish four websites which most people seem to think are OK.

          As I sometimes give tuition to beginners, the most common request is to teach Excel. So if you are proficient with this software, you should have no trouble picking up some spare cash by imparting your knowledge to those are willing to pay for it.

          Oh, and thanks for the tip. I will have to open a few more bank accounts so that I will have a reason to add more pages to the relevant Excel worksheet.

        • #2691290

          Which version of Microsoft Office do you use?

          by michelle.richardson ·

          In reply to 3 tabs???

          mix bag, the majority is Word 2002. But some have Word 2003 & Word 97

    • #2692601

      MSOffice 97

      by abrunsvold ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are not currently planning to upgrade until next year.

    • #2692600

      MSOffice 97

      by abrunsvold ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are not currently planning to upgrade to MSOffice 2003 until next year.

    • #2692533

      97 to 2k to 2k3

      by wyrmlord ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      My corporation’s old standard was MSO 97, but as new factories with their own stds were bought, the de facto std became MSO 2k, what with some functions/VBA/gizmos/… missing from the 97. This year and the next there will be a general migration to MSO 2k3 and as far as I can say, some boxes do have it already. Same for the server OS’s btw – for now it is NT, but this summer we’ll be upgrading to 2k3.
      Decisions are taken elsewhere (and much higher), so I cannot really say what it is they don’t like about OOo, Corel, or whatever. Tradition, I suppose…

    • #2692528

      Getting rid of MSO

      by wiremaster ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      I use openoffice.org (1.1) and most of my customers are switching from mso to ooo ’cause they save a lot of money and it works well.
      The only problem is that ooo is missing an access-like db management tool for not-so-expert users, but i think oo.org is working on that stuff.
      Ciao, wiremaster.

    • #2690831
      Avatar photo

      Al las I have various versions of Office Installed

      by hal 9000 ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      From 97 onward to the latest Office 2003 but I really only use them when approached by a client who just has to use MS Office whatever as my preference is Corel’s Word Perfect Office 11 which I’m currently using and I’m in the testing stage of the new version 12 which has only just become available. It still leaves the Microsoft product for dead and has a lot on nice features that I really like as well as most of my customers as well as they tend to use it when given the option.

      Col

    • #2690828

      Which version of Office

      by blackcurrant ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Currently use Ofice 2000

      No immediate plans to upgrade

    • #2690822

      Office 2000 no plqns to upgrade

      by jimhm ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Currently running Office 2000 with no future plans for upgrades.

      • #2690851

        Ditto

        by cptomlly ·

        In reply to Office 2000 no plqns to upgrade

        MS Office 2K is here to stay

      • #2691212

        Office 2K stays

        by boulderridge ·

        In reply to Office 2000 no plqns to upgrade

        My clients, in particular a very large healthcare corp, are generally using Office 2000 and I have not heard a lot of plans to upgrade. So I will not be upgrading either, since I do custom Office programming and try to stay in synch with my clients…

      • #2692065

        3 Month study – we are moving to Star Office

        by jimhm ·

        In reply to Office 2000 no plqns to upgrade

        After a 3 month study and cost analysis – with training issues and converting issues – we are not renewing MS Office and moving to Star Office …

        Bye Bye Microtrash – will let everyone know as we roll out Star.

      • #2731346

        ditto Office 2000

        by dschr ·

        In reply to Office 2000 no plqns to upgrade

        Office 2000. No plans to upgrade.

    • #2690820

      Woo hoo

      by guruofdos ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      I’m still using Word 1.1 and Excel 3.0 on a couple of computers…for speed more than any other reason. Several users in the company still use Office 6(95), a few have Office 97 and I run O2K when I need to, but as Office sucks and is so bug-ridden I much prefer to use Lotus Ami-Pro or at a pinch, Lotus WordPro.

      Why spend $400+ on an overbloated suite when all you want to do is write the odd letter? I still supply clients with Office95 if all they want is a basic package. At about ?3 ($5) a copy of the Professional version, it’s much cheaper than paying for features they will never use on a package which demands ever more and more resources and processing power.

      I’ve said this before and I will keep saying it until I draw my last dying breath. A 486 SX 33 with 4Mb of ram and a 540mb hard disk will start faster, open a document and print it quicker under Win3.11 with Word 1.1 than any new fangled 3GHz system with a gig of ram and the fastest disk subsystem known to mankind and 2K or XP. Newer and better (and more expensive) isn’t always better than tried, trusted and cheap!

      Writing occasional letters on a P4 with oodles of resources and power is a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Print a Word Doc on the 486 to a Deskjet printer, and print the same doc from the P4 to the same printer…now look at the two (identical) documents and you tell me which computer produced them!!!

      • #2690694
        Avatar photo

        GOD Good to see you back

        by hal 9000 ·

        In reply to Woo hoo

        There is a person here doing some work on an IT study who would benefit from your input as your in the UK and I don’t know exactly what is going on over there at the moment could you drop into

        http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=4&threadID=150786&start=0

        and add what you know about the court action in the UK to prevent the PHD student completing his studies by preventing him from publishing his Thesis? He was called to give evidence about just how insecure credit cards actually are and the banks where trying to get all of his work suppressed as it didn’t show then in such a good light. The original complaint came about because a credit card was delivered to someone who at the time was out of the country with his entire family in South Africa and the card was stolen and used extensively, the banks excuse to not honor their duty of care was that they had received no complaint that the card was stolen so it was the person who’s name the card was open in problem. But as he didn’t order the card in the first place and had no idea of what was going on he couldn’t report it as stolen as to his knowledge it didn’t exist, it was only when he got back that he was landed with the bill.

        But part of the Students work {I think he was from Cambridge} was to show that it was possible to crack any PIN number within 15 attempts and that you didn’t need to be working for a bank to know how to do this. All of his research materials are public domain but apparently he has managed to tie it all together very well and the banks see his work as a threat to themselves. If you know about this could you either drop me a line or place a posting on the thread for this kid so he at least gets a bit more than just US information to work from.

        Col

        • #2690693
          Avatar photo

          Sorry I should have asked

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to GOD Good to see you back

          How your little one is doing?

          I’ll bet she is getting big by now and getting harder to control but that is only if you have the idea that you are in control as from my experience they control your lives.

          Col

        • #2691143

          Don’t ask!

          by guruofdos ·

          In reply to Sorry I should have asked

          I’m just about to take her to the doctors for her 8 month development check…

          So far, at 8 months, she’s mastered about ten words, can just about crawl (so I’m relocating cables for the computers out of harms way!) and is eating me out of house and home…not to mention wearing clothes meant for a baby three times her age!

          Bless her….she’s a bundle of joy, make no mistake, but costing me a fortune!!

          Drop me an email address and I’ll send a mug-shot!

        • #2691145

          Back in harness

          by guruofdos ·

          In reply to GOD Good to see you back

          I’ll look into it and hook up with you on this one!

        • #2691280
          Avatar photo

          Thanks

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to Back in harness

          .

    • #2690814

      O2K

      by dwdino ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      O2K is image standard.

      Cannot use Open Office for lack of DB tools which my clinets constantly use.

    • #2690799

      XP crap – 2003 not liked – Open Office soon

      by deadly ernest ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Some people tried Office Xp and gave it the deep 6, they then tried Office 2003 Seemed OK at first so we started a roll out. Never finished as we kept getting too many complaints about wizards that can’t be turned off and auto default settings replacing custom ones. Most are still using Office 97, a few Office 2000 (came preloaded).

      The hot topic is how well some people are responding to a test of Open Office. Things a looking more and more like an Open Office roll out for our next update. This has got management thinking about switching to a fully integrated Linux package like Mandrake 10. Just have to wait and see.

    • #2690756

      Two versions

      by wordworker ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Office 97 being phased out, replaced by Office 2000 for 45,000 users nationwide over a two-year migration. Will stay with O2K through at least ’05.

      Office 2003 – recommended to all my nonprofit clients because they can get it for basically nothing.

      Despite the moaning and groaning about MS Office in this forum, it’s THE standard. Very few I/T directors I know would seriously consider implementing Open Source in their enterprise – they don’t want to have to do retraining. (I know, the OpenSource fan[atic]s think it’s easy to learn, but if it’s NEW, it’s hard for non-IT geeks to learn.) With MS Office, at least you’ve got training options and books on every street corner.

    • #2691108

      Office 2000, XP and 2003

      by mbaker ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      I have travelled around the world recently and have found most companies to be using a mixture of Office 2000, XP and a couple of 2003’s.

      • #3273643

        how to install the office 2003

        by ronnie5fer ·

        In reply to Office 2000, XP and 2003

        how to install the office 2003 in my linux software. my software version is linux red hat 9. i try to install can’t be install there some problem can you help me in this problem..

    • #2691035

      97 w\ Outlook 2K and XP

      by lizzy ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      I am in the process of upgrading to XP from Office 97 with Outlook 2000. Skipping Office 2000 although I tried it on one PC. I like XP okay but found many problems when installing it on Windows 98 computers rather than W2K or WinXP units. See MS knowledge base articles on CTFMON, 282599; HD runs continuously after installing Office XP, 282106; and disabling MDM, 221438 (this is actually for W2K, but applies to Office XP as well in regards to MDM).

      Databases set up on the network in the Access 97 format have been a pain in the neck because users that wanted Outlook XP’s bells and whistles had to have a dual install of Access 97 since the database versions were not compatible and the database administrator was not about to convert all of his databases! I don’t have the article number for this one handy, but there’s one out there!

      Can you say job security?

      😉

    • #2691005

      Office 2003

      by asheehy ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We just rolled out 1000+ Office 2003 installs which replaced Office 97. The client was a government ministry in Canada.

      For the record, I would have prefered to roll out OOo. I used it full-time for 2 years before taking this current job.

    • #2690984

      OS?

      by stephencairns ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      the organisation I’m currently working for is running NT4 on the desktops, w2k on laptops (and I think on the servers) unless you oay for an upgrade. xp is only just being supported. office 97 is the the default (though I think there may be 95’s out there).
      support for nt will be withdrawn in the 3rd quarter but I dont think there will be a blanket roll out just replaced as leased machines are replaced. I gess thats what happens when you work for a huge corporation.

    • #2691336

      Which version of MS OFfice do you use…

      by susanhall442 ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      My school district uses Office 2000 for most of their machines. However all incoming and recently purchased computers have Office 2003. This creates some irritating issues when it comes to saving items to a shared folder. Those with the older version cannot open items created by the newer version unless the XP users remember to save it as an older MS Office type.
      Upgrades of all Multi Media computers to Win XP is taking place now and therefor and upgrade to Office 2003 is taking place at the same time. This is only about half of the computers in the District or maybe less. So we still have compatability issues.
      My school alone has about 500 computers.

    • #2691335

      Office 2003

      by rene_lopez ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Office 2003 – no problems so far.

      • #2691279
        Avatar photo

        Just remember to turn off the tracking facility

        by hal 9000 ·

        In reply to Office 2003

        Before sending anything out electronically. Most people seem to forget about that little gem.

        Col

    • #2691325

      Process of switching

      by sean.friedman ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are split between 97 and XP and are about a little over half way in converting our staff. We should have our entire dept converted by then end of June.

    • #2691322

      Office 2000 with mix of Access

      by help desk guru ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are presently using Office2000 with a mix bag of versions of Access. Some departments completely refuse to wakeup and smell the gigabits burning. Access 95, 97, 2000 are strewn around and causing havok for departments who need to share info.
      “You better down-save it so I can see it!”
      “No, you better upgrade to the version I have!”

      *SIGH* If only they would realize that this is a resource that needs to be used to the fullest. Maybe if we took away Access and made them go back to hand-written memo pads and filing cabinets.

    • #2691316

      Office version

      by phassell ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We use Office 2000 (200+ users) with no plans to upgrade.

    • #2691310

      Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      by kevpolo ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      My company is currently using Microsoft Office 2003. I would like some tips and tricks on creating a macro in Word 2003 or Excel 2003. Is there an easy way of creating a macro in the new Office 2003.
      Please advise!

      Thank You!

      Kevin Santos
      Technical Engineer
      Computer Tech-Solutions
      432 7th Street
      Carlstadt, NJ 07072
      sant667@msn.com

    • #2691307

      Office Version

      by bobt ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are currently running Office 2000 Profesional. We are not planning an upgrade in the near future.

      Thanks

    • #2691301

      MS Office 2000

      by d.h. cesare ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      with no plans to “upgrade”.

    • #2691259

      2003-1997=6 x the cost of an upgrade

      by tundraroamer ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are 99.9% Office 97. Last week I installed Office 2003 on a new laptop that was purchased outside of corporate procedure (another discussion topic).
      I warned the user(s) that if they used some of the new bells & whistles of O03, that the rest of the company would not be able to use their work. So they have to “dummy down” and not use them. In practice, I have only had a few instances where vendors or customers sent us a spreadsheet that we had problems using until a work around could be made.

      We looked at upgrading our servers to 2003 and Office 2003 as well. I do see some new features of benefit to the corporate functions, but the licensing issues (cost) killed the whole project.

      Besides, most of my users only use a few features in Word, Excel and PowerPoint to do their work. Why upgrade to support that?

      Recently, while attending a MS seminar on this subject, the speaker admitted that O97 was too good of a product and users had little reason to upgrade. He stated that something like 80% of the Office suites in use worldwide were O97.

      He was right, why upgrade something that works?

    • #2692159

      OFFICE 2000

      by lilyleader ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      No plan for upgrade.

    • #2692139

      Office 2K

      by chun ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      When I came into the company on 2001, we are already using Office 2K.

      Although we have bought Office XP and 2K3 recently due to Open Licensing. (no Office 2K to buy) Most of us still using Office 2K. Why change when everything is fine? And most people are only using 20% of Office 2K anyway.

    • #2692070

      Reply To: Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      by j.mohrs ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We ar upgrading to Office XP with our department

    • #2692057

      Office 2000 and heading to Office 2003 — maybe

      by mr. content ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We’ve already faced backward-compatibility issues (mostly DRM-related) with some key leading-edge clients that already jumped to Office 2003.

      In addition, the whole Longhorn and Office roadmap for the next six years has many on our team worried that Office 2003 will gain a major foothold as a default standard based on hardware replacements getting or going to Office 2003, and not Office XP or 2000. Plus, at the end of that time, the jump from Office 2000 to a Web-services-based Office 2010 may be too much of a leap.

      If the business expands as planned (including an acquisition), Office 2000 probably won’t survive as our standard. But for now, we’ll get by using Office 2000.

    • #2691959

      Office 2K and Office 2003

      by dfranklin ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Hello all
      At TS2 we are using 2 Office 2003 installs and 8 Office 2000 installs.

      Regards
      Dave

    • #2691870

      Office 2003 (mostly)

      by gwk ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      MS-Office 2003 on my main machine, as my clients erquire 100% compatibility for files we interchange. I tried Openoffice, but inter-operability wasn’t good enough. My backup PC (pretty old) has Office97/Win95 (yes, they still exist). I do use OO1.1 for conversions to Acrobat, but usually have to tinker with the imported files before converting.

    • #2691632

      Using Office 2003

      by rsimanski ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      I’m using Office 2003 Professional, mainly because I need to keep pace with, or one step ahead, of what my proposal development and technical writing clients are using.

      I’ve found Word 2003 to be more stable that Word XP. However, in my opinion, Office 2000 was the best all-around version so far. I don’t like some of the changes that Microsoft made to the interface in Word XP and carried over to Word 2003.

      In particular, I find the new way of handling and displaying comments very annoying. I preferred the old way, where you could put your cursor over a comment and read it. Now, as soon as I enter a comment, if I’m in print layout mode, Word zooms back to about 83 percent when I want to stay at full text width. If I’m in Normal mode, I get this ridicuously large reviewing pane at the bottom of the screen.

      I also don’t like the way that Microsoft changed Outline View. It used to be so simple to select the level that you wanted. I finally figured out how to collapse the outline to the level that I want but it was much more intuitive before. I find the Outline view useful for moving large sections of text within a document.

    • #2737493

      Office 2002

      by tchantchès ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      My main customer migrated last year from Office 97 to Office 2002. Due to slowness (and lack of resources) of their development department, many engineers had developed in VBA the applications they didn’t get from dev teams, mostly in Access. We had to review the code of 600+ applications including DAO/ADO conversions. A hell of a job… Moreover, the management didn’t believe in alternative solutions like OpenOffice. There are no plans to move further for at least three years.

    • #2737235

      O2K, Star

      by trinalin ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Our school uses Office2000 for all teachers and high school students. The elementary students use Star Office. We used to have FrontPageXP, which, sadly, did not play well with O2K. But thankfully, we’re ditching it and getting Macromedia Studio MX 2004 this summer.

      I love the ORC (Office Resource Kit) and rely alot on NT policies to get things working. (We’re NT4 shop – can’t afford to upgrade and, frankly, I’d prefer not. Win98SE and NT4 are stable enough for us.)

    • #2737223

      Which version of Office?

      by jrw_simplex ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      At work, I have Office 97 which works just fine for my needs.

      We were a little slow to add Office to our home machine, and by the time we did, Office 97 was long gone off the store shelves. So we got stuck buying Office XP or 2003 (I don’t recall which).

      At least we have something at home to open spreadsheets that were incompatible with the MS Works (UGH!) that came with the computer when we bought it some 6 years ago.

      The newer MSO is a horrible beast to put on an old laptop with a mere 1GB of space left on its hard drive!

      Maybe we should have gone with Corel’s suite?

      Jim W.

    • #2737213

      “If it ain’t broke…”

      by noemib ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Right now we have Office 2000 running on all our desktops and laptops. I purchased a copy of Office XP to test it out and experiment with new features. I only use OXP on our web server and I don’t plan to upgrade the other machines, since everything is working fine and besides, most users only use the basic functions.

      “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…”

    • #2737206

      Which Version of Microsoft Office…

      by tj23 ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are using Office 2K on NT OS. There are no plans to upgrade Office however there is discussion of upgrading the OS to XP. No definite plans at this time for when the upgrade will occur. 2K and NT are fine for our purposes and the discussion of upgrading is simply for support reasons.

    • #2737203

      Just Updated to W2K3

      by dalesprague ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We work for a software company selling specialized systems in the automobile industry. Many of our new installations involve the dealerships buying brand new computers and workstations from the likes of Dell or Gateway. Dell as a rule won’t sell a new computer with an old operating system or old version of office, so we have to be prepared to test with the new operating systems and with the new office products. So we have just updated to W2K3 and while it is different it is not drastically so. The look and feel is easy to work with. There are some new features that seem more intuitive.

      We know from experience though that people don’t like to change. Unfortunately in today’s global economy, to not change is to sink. So embrace the change if you can do so financially and move forward.

      Dale

    • #2737166

      What version of Office

      by larrydavis ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We use Office 2000 because we paid the price for it to be standard at our company and the newer models are not worth the upgrade money. Larry Davis.

    • #2737159

      O2000

      by paclady ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We’re using MS Office 2000 (Win 2000 op system). Our “mother ship” is beginning to use 2003, but that hasn’t filtered down yet – or will for awhile. When I teach local continuing classes, the school keeps upgrading so they are up to 2003.

    • #2737146

      Another vote for mixed bag

      by blueknight ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We’ve been running both Office 97 and 2000 because the most common version in our user departments has been Office 97. That’s changed of late so Office 2000 is the current standard even though XP is beginning to show up on a few new machines.

      Because of Microsoft’s licensing costs, we’ve also begun looking at Star Office/Open Office as an alternative.

    • #2737134

      Office XP and Office X

      by don1958 ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We have a mixed platform environment. PCs dominate and are running Office XP SP2. We have experience a lot of weird printing issues, particularly with page numbers in Word. They look fine on screen but print “Page 1 of 1, Page 2 of 2…etc.”. Printing directly from Print Preview seems to fix it most of the time. We also have several hundred Macs using Office X. The main issue there is that Entourage (mail client) does not provide full compatibility with an Exchange Server mail environment. In short, it stinks. For the record, we also have a lot of Linux/Unix users on Sun systems, but nearly all of them have either a PC or some sort of virtual shell that allows them to use PC software, like Office.

      We are currently working on a plan to upgrade our users to Office 2003 and Office:Mac 2004 this year.

    • #2731575

      Office Versions

      by elama ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Our county also has a mixed bag of Office versions which include Office 2000, 2002, XP, 2003. This wasn’t intentional, but the new computers come with the newest version.

      ISSUES:

      We’ve experienced problems with W2K svcpk 4, and upgrading to Office XP, specifically Publisher. It is now our policy to uninstall SvcPk 4 prior to the office upgrade, and then reinstall it. It is not a consistent issue, but this eliminates any problems.

      Another issue is backward compatibility from Office 2003 to Office 2000. We’ve made it a general policy to install the Access viewer, Excel converters and viewers,Outlook converters and viewers, PowerPoint converters and viewers, and Visio converters and viewers whenever we setup a new user on a workstation running Office 2000. This allows the user to read information received from anyone on the domain.

    • #2731553

      Current versions of Office

      by pthomason ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are currently using Office 2000 and Office XP and plan to upgrade within the next 3 months to Office 2003. Anything you guys can offer in the way of guidance for migrating to Office 2003, or any already known issues would be very helpful.

      • #2731080

        Office version

        by soumi ·

        In reply to Current versions of Office

        Ditto. I’m on the Help Desk with 250 users all have Office XP. Most of the IT staff has 2003 to test drive it. Yeah sure. They only wanted the latest ‘toy’.

        I kept XP to stay even with my users. The plan is to move to 2003 last quarter this year or 1st quarter 2005.

        I agree with the preceeding message. Anything you can offer would be great. Also if you would provide a comparison of the versions as to what has changed and what hasn’t from the users viewpoint.

    • #2736903

      Office 2002 SP2

      by robbyboy44 ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are currently evaluating OO1.1 to decide whether it (or any later version) will become the standard across the board.
      So far, other than a few niggles put down to user hostility/stupidity it looks like that’s the way we’ll go late this/early next year.
      We are NOT planning on paying exorbitant prices for M$ bugware and bloatware. We are also looking at Linux as the next incarnation of our OS.

    • #2736710

      Office2000 and planning upgrade

      by gunilla.karlen ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Hi, my organization currently use Office 2000.
      We are planning an upgrade to Office 2003, starting a pilot in August and hopefully be ready for a rollout Jan 2005.
      We guess that Outlook 2003 will be greatly appreciated since 2000 version has limitations especially for remote users…but the interface is also different which will puzzle the user a bit.
      Another thought is all templates …. will they work correctly with this upgrade or do we need to rebuild!?
      These and many other questions will hopefully be answered during our pilot period.
      ;-)Gunilla

    • #2731192

      Microsoft Office 2000

      by paulat ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      In our organization of approximately 350 computer users, we are using Microsoft Office 2000. According to management, we do not have plans to upgrade anytime in the near future mainly because of the mix of operating systems we still maintain – WIN9X, 2K, XP. We have a few copies of Office XP in the mix and one or two copies of Outlook 2003. Hopefully, the HelpDesk will be getting new machines with VMWare so we can better support multiple environments and applications.

    • #2731191

      Office 97

      by pml ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      I use Office 97 but I am planning to upgrade to Office 2003 next year.

    • #2731178

      Office 97 and Outlook 98

      by orkboss ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We have 55 PC’s running Office 97.
      Never had any complaints about Off97 lacking a feature that someone needed, most users don’t care much.
      There are some power users in-house. They can create macros and use Excel almost to it’s capabilities.
      We have many databases programmed in Access. Most were created by beginner / intermediate skill level users.
      Our company rarely uses advanced features in Office 97, so it’s unlikely that we will upgrade any time soon.

    • #2731177

      Office 2K; no upgrades

      by galepr ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      There are no plans to upgrade in any of the offices I work with. No verifiable advantages; a big downside in the “report home” functions.

    • #2731113

      Mostly 2000…

      by dmammone ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      Since we are a small business, we really have no justification for an across-the-board upgrade. So, what I do is get the current version of Office on each new computer purchase.

      Having said that, most workstations here have Office 2000 on Windows NT4. A couple laptops and workstations have Windows 2000 with either Office 2000 or XP. And one laptop (most recent purchase) has Windows XP with Office 2003 (ordered, much to my chagrin).

    • #2731093

      Don’t like the Big Brother act by Microsoft

      by mrlaw10 ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are staying put with all upgrades having to do with MS. Every time we change hardware we have to call MS to get their permission to install the software we purchased!! So we are staying with Office 2000 but I am really going to start taking a look at this Openoffice product.

      Wayne

      • #2731078

        Open Office.

        by lastchip ·

        In reply to Don’t like the Big Brother act by Microsoft

        Nothing wrong with Open Office, but it does lack an Access equivalent. If all your business needs are a word processor and spreadsheet, Open Office will suffice and also offer a lot more besides.

        Star Office includes a data base application, but it is considerably more complex than Access.

        Personally, I use Office 97 and Open Office and can switch files one to another with no problem.I have no intention of spending anymore money on Microsoft products, unless the benefits are inescapable, and at the moment, that simply isn’t true. This constant round of upgrading is nonsense.

    • #2735909

      Office 2003, XP, and 2000

      by ppalmer ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We are a computer consulting shop, so we have to support all three versions. Internally, we are running Office 2003 and OpenOffice.

      At this point, we have gotten the clients to get rid of Office 97. The division between versions is Office 2000 – 80%, Office XP – 15% and Office 2003 – 5%. Several of our clients are exploring OpenOffice, but it hasn’t made it past the test bay stage.

      Of the clients using an older version of Office, 20% are staying where they are for the next year, 30% will upgrade in the next year, 20% are ungrading in the next 3 months, 10% are evaluating which version to move to and 10% are looking at alternatives to Office and 10% haven’t decided what they are going to do.

      As for problems with 2003, we have had a higher incidence of unexpected errors with no apparent cause. We have also had complaints regarding Microsoft’s licencing procedure and the process with new hardware. Its been compared to getting a hall pass in grade school.

      On the positive side, the additional web support has been very helpful for several of our clients.

    • #2693108

      MSWORD 97

      by microc ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      MSWORD 97 is what I have been using since it came out. I will be staying with it for two reasons.
      First, it will do almost all I want it to do. I use dtp software when it won’t. I don’t plan to learn the later versions at the expense of my productivity time.
      Second, I’m tired of MS ‘jerking my chain.’ By the end of this year I expect to have LINUX alternatives to everything MS up and running.

    • #3240223

      Office version

      by susanhall442 ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We use Office 2000 on the majority of the machines in our district. All computers purchased since the beginning of last year run Office 2003. We have a very large school district with thousands of computers.

    • #3240193

      Mixed also

      by jc in kc ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We upgraded our network to 2k3 in November of 03 and spent the 6 months prior to that upgrading all PCs (maybe 200 or so) to 2K with Office 2K, as well. Since then, we’ve had to upgrade/replace only a few dozen machines due to obsolescence or failure. Those machines have typically gotten XP w/ Office XP and very recently Office 2K3.

      No real issues, except for a CRM program one of our Sales Departments are using which exports data to templates created for Word. Apparently, that function changed in Word between 2K and XP, so they are stuck with 2K until we phase out that CRM product.

    • #3257202

      Office 2003

      by mr. content ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      We’ve just upgraded from Office 2000 to Office 2003. The clients are being upgraded first in preparation for an Exchange upgrade.

      So far the clients have behaved fairly well, with the exception of Outlook 2000 systems that used customized plugins (Plaxo most often, but also others, such as LinkedIn). With these 2000-platform plugins left in place, the upgraded Outlook 2003 would do strange things like automatically move Outlook function windows (for mail, claendar, tasks, etc.) to the background. Removing and reinstalling the plugins fixed the problem.

      Offline replication settings for users weren’t migrated properly either, which prompted a flurry of calls to the help desk (i.e., “where are my offline files?”) and annoyed nearly everyone who had to go back and specify all the folders they want to have access to offline again.

    • #3181120

      Office 2003

      by gunilla.karlen ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      After a year of planning we are now running Office 2003 all of us and it’s working fine.

      • #3102283

        how 2 install office 2003

        by ronnie5fer ·

        In reply to Office 2003

        how to install the office 2003 in the linux name od the os is “redhat 9” please help me just send to my eamail add the solution because this is my last defence in my life how to install a software in the linux.. this my email add “ronnie5fer@yahoo.com” pls help me..

        thank you for the message u gave to me as helping me in my problem thank you all the readers of this proble in the pc system.

    • #3273642

      me agian

      by ronnie5fer ·

      In reply to Which version of Microsoft Office are you using?

      i use the office 2003 to install in the os of linux

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