[Daniel]

Is there one step that you can do to change older documents to the 2007
version? The only way I know to do it is to do it one document at a time -
and it reduplicates the document. I just want to convert it. Thanks.

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Daniel,

Are you using File=Save as and saving to the new name or when you open the document using the Office Button then 'Convert'?

If you use convert the original file should be replaced with the new one (which can be a problem for some folks if they need that)
although the original file name won't be cleared from the listing in File=Open until you close Word.

If you use Office Button=Save and choose a different file name or file type you would get an additional file and retain your
original.

You can add the convert button to your quick access toolbar when you open a .doc file by using Office Button, right click on
'convert' and add it. It will only 'light up' when a document would need to switch from a 2003 to a 2007 format.

There is a batch migration tool for deployments (part of a set of tools, rather than a standalone) but it too creates a new set of
documents as the default, rather than chance losing content).

==================
"Daniel" wrote in message news Is there one step that you can do to change older documents to the 2007
version? The only way I know to do it is to do it one document at a time -
and it reduplicates the document. I just want to convert it. Thanks.
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Chap]

This doesn't work for me, i.e. the original file is still in place when I
close Word. I'm going to call Microsoft, but any ideas?

Thanks,
Chap

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Daniel,

Are you using File=Save as and saving to the new name or when you open the document using the Office Button then 'Convert'?

If you use convert the original file should be replaced with the new one (which can be a problem for some folks if they need that)
although the original file name won't be cleared from the listing in File=Open until you close Word.

If you use Office Button=Save and choose a different file name or file type you would get an additional file and retain your
original.

You can add the convert button to your quick access toolbar when you open a .doc file by using Office Button, right click on
'convert' and add it. It will only 'light up' when a document would need to switch from a 2003 to a 2007 format.

There is a batch migration tool for deployments (part of a set of tools, rather than a standalone) but it too creates a new set of
documents as the default, rather than chance losing content).

==================
"Daniel" wrote in message news Is there one step that you can do to change older documents to the 2007
version? The only way I know to do it is to do it one document at a time -
and it reduplicates the document. I just want to convert it. Thanks.
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Chap,

Since there were several things to be looked at in the previous scenario, it's not clear what/which item isn't working for you.

============
"Chap" wrote in message ...
This doesn't work for me, i.e. the original file is still in place when I
close Word. I'm going to call Microsoft, but any ideas?

Thanks,
Chap
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Chap]

Sorry about that. The conversion feature doesn't work...

1) When I click on OFFICE CONVERT, Word seems to convert the file, but it
doesn't change the file name in the title bar to *.docx.
2) When I click on OFFICE SAVE, Word prompts me for a new file name.
3) And when I close Word, the previous version of the file is still in place.

The problem only exists on the network. The feature works fine on a local
drive.

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Chap,

Since there were several things to be looked at in the previous scenario, it's not clear what/which item isn't working for you.

============
"Chap" wrote in message ...
This doesn't work for me, i.e. the original file is still in place when I
close Word. I'm going to call Microsoft, but any ideas?

Thanks,
Chap
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[StefanKZVB]

Hi Chap,

we've got the same problem with converting files on network folders, too. It
works fine on the local drive.

Did you get a solution from Microsoft?

"Chap" wrote:

The problem only exists on the network. The feature works fine on a local
drive.

[Chap]

I opened two cases with Microsoft, one with the networking side, and both
said the software is operating as intended. I don't necessarily accept that,
because neither knew about the behavior before I pointed it out. And I got
the impression they were covering their bases. It doesn't make sense that the
software would behave one way on a local drive and another way on a network
drive.

"StefanKZVB" wrote:

Hi Chap,

we've got the same problem with converting files on network folders, too. It
works fine on the local drive.

Did you get a solution from Microsoft?

"Chap" wrote:

The problem only exists on the network. The feature works fine on a local
drive.

[StefanKZVB]

Hi Chap, thank you for your immediate response.

I agree with you - if it doesn't work on network drives it is NOT working as
intended! The documentation (and even Word's information dialog before
conversion) tells how it is intended to work. Besides - the feature works
here with Excel on network drives.

We will be investigating around the problem internally a bit more but we'll
probably also open a call to Microsoft next week. The faulty behaviour occurs
here even if the remote location is a share on another Windows XP SP2-PC.

We are using the German version.

"Chap" wrote:

I opened two cases with Microsoft, one with the networking side, and both
said the software is operating as intended. I don't necessarily accept that,
because neither knew about the behavior before I pointed it out. And I got
the impression they were covering their bases. It doesn't make sense that the
software would behave one way on a local drive and another way on a network
drive.

"StefanKZVB" wrote:

Hi Chap,

we've got the same problem with converting files on network folders, too. It
works fine on the local drive.

Did you get a solution from Microsoft?

"Chap" wrote:

The problem only exists on the network. The feature works fine on a local
drive.

[Jeff Mathewson[_2_]]

What issue are you having with the network and Word 2007? Your posts didn't
really state the problem..and I would be interested to know if it's
something like what we may be having with Word 2007.


"StefanKZVB" wrote in message
...
Hi Chap,

we've got the same problem with converting files on network folders, too.
It
works fine on the local drive.

Did you get a solution from Microsoft?

"Chap" wrote:

The problem only exists on the network. The feature works fine on a
local
drive.

[StefanKZVB]

Hi Jeff,

the old .doc files remain on the network storage after conversion by the
user to .docx-format.

Please have a look here for the steps to reproduce the problem:

Word 2007: Convert Doc to Docx problem on network locations
http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...=en-us&m=1&p=1

Can you reproduce the problem in your environment?

Stefan

"Jeff Mathewson" wrote:

What issue are you having with the network and Word 2007? Your posts didn't
really state the problem..and I would be interested to know if it's
something like what we may be having with Word 2007.

[Jeff Mathewson[_2_]]

Stefan,

I don't see this as a bug. But when doing a fast check, I see that it is
one..but a very good bug. In that we are doing massive conversions and need
to keep the DOC files, so as you can guess, converting and keeping the DOC
files is good unlike Excel which does delete the files - which doesn't seem
to have as many conversion problems as Word 2007 does.

The big question is, is this really a bug, or something MS removed. I've
been finding converting from other versions of Word isn't going all that
well and if we lost the DOC files it would be a mess..MS may have seen this
as well and removed the auto delete for Word???? At the end, I hope that
they DO NOT fix this bug.

Jeff.
"StefanKZVB" wrote in message
...
Hi Jeff,

the old .doc files remain on the network storage after conversion by the
user to .docx-format.

Please have a look here for the steps to reproduce the problem:

Word 2007: Convert Doc to Docx problem on network locations

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...=en-us&m=1&p=1

Can you reproduce the problem in your environment?

Stefan

"Jeff Mathewson" wrote:

What issue are you having with the network and Word 2007? Your posts
didn't
really state the problem..and I would be interested to know if it's
something like what we may be having with Word 2007.

[StefanKZVB]

Jeff,

yes, it's a bug not a feature. Problem is who will ever really clean up the
mess of duplicate files on the network storage with hundreds or thousands ?
What's your suggestion?

It's also documented what to do to get the feature you need:
Simply click on "Save as" instead of "Save" after clicking on "Convert" - so
there will be .docx and .doc files. But for Clicking on "Save" it's
documented to delete the old .doc.

And if the cause of the bug is i.e. some file-locking problem of Word 2007
on network storage it might cause other problems! I think I already
experienced another issue related to this. It can make work harder for
developers of .dotm-Word-Addins.

Stefan

"Jeff Mathewson" wrote:

Stefan,

I don't see this as a bug. But when doing a fast check, I see that it is
one..but a very good bug. In that we are doing massive conversions and need
to keep the DOC files, so as you can guess, converting and keeping the DOC
files is good unlike Excel which does delete the files - which doesn't seem
to have as many conversion problems as Word 2007 does.

The big question is, is this really a bug, or something MS removed. I've
been finding converting from other versions of Word isn't going all that
well and if we lost the DOC files it would be a mess..MS may have seen this
as well and removed the auto delete for Word???? At the end, I hope that
they DO NOT fix this bug.

Jeff.
"StefanKZVB" wrote in message
...
Hi Jeff,

the old .doc files remain on the network storage after conversion by the
user to .docx-format.

Please have a look here for the steps to reproduce the problem:

Word 2007: Convert Doc to Docx problem on network locations

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...=en-us&m=1&p=1

Can you reproduce the problem in your environment?

Stefan

"Jeff Mathewson" wrote:

What issue are you having with the network and Word 2007? Your posts
didn't
really state the problem..and I would be interested to know if it's
something like what we may be having with Word 2007.

[Graham Mayor]

Why bother converting them? Word 2007 will open them and edit them as they
are?

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


StefanKZVB wrote:
Jeff,

yes, it's a bug not a feature. Problem is who will ever really clean
up the mess of duplicate files on the network storage with hundreds
or thousands ? What's your suggestion?

It's also documented what to do to get the feature you need:
Simply click on "Save as" instead of "Save" after clicking on
"Convert" - so there will be .docx and .doc files. But for Clicking
on "Save" it's documented to delete the old .doc.

And if the cause of the bug is i.e. some file-locking problem of Word
2007 on network storage it might cause other problems! I think I
already experienced another issue related to this. It can make work
harder for developers of .dotm-Word-Addins.

Stefan

"Jeff Mathewson" wrote:

Stefan,

I don't see this as a bug. But when doing a fast check, I see that
it is one..but a very good bug. In that we are doing massive
conversions and need to keep the DOC files, so as you can guess,
converting and keeping the DOC files is good unlike Excel which does
delete the files - which doesn't seem to have as many conversion
problems as Word 2007 does.

The big question is, is this really a bug, or something MS removed.
I've been finding converting from other versions of Word isn't going
all that well and if we lost the DOC files it would be a mess..MS
may have seen this as well and removed the auto delete for Word????
At the end, I hope that they DO NOT fix this bug.

Jeff.
"StefanKZVB" wrote in message
...
Hi Jeff,

the old .doc files remain on the network storage after conversion
by the user to .docx-format.

Please have a look here for the steps to reproduce the problem:

Word 2007: Convert Doc to Docx problem on network locations

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...=en-us&m=1&p=1

Can you reproduce the problem in your environment?

Stefan

"Jeff Mathewson" wrote:

What issue are you having with the network and Word 2007? Your
posts didn't really state the problem..and I would be interested
to know if it's something like what we may be having with Word
2007.

[StefanKZVB]

1. You can't use some Word 2007 features with doc files.

2. .doc might become unusable with a future version - like Powerpoint 2007
can't read Powerpoint 4.0/95 files

3. The "native" mode of applications is likely to be more tested / bug-free
/ stable. Here's an example of a buggy implementation of a compatibility
featu
http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...=en-us&m=1&p=1

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

Why bother converting them? Word 2007 will open them and edit them as they
are?

[Graham Mayor]

StefanKZVB wrote:
1. You can't use some Word 2007 features with doc files.

No you can't but your old documents don't have Word 2007 features.


2. .doc might become unusable with a future version - like Powerpoint
2007 can't read Powerpoint 4.0/95 files

This has never happened with Word before. Word can (still) open all previous
versions.


3. The "native" mode of applications is likely to be more tested /
bug-free / stable. Here's an example of a buggy implementation of a
compatibility featu
http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...=en-us&m=1&p=1

It's a bit of a leap to believe that may be true, given that Word's doc
format has been around mucvh longer, but I take your point. Do your old
documents have this problem, or only new ones you are creating in
compatibilty mode? If not I still see no reason to mass convert old
documents. Those that need to be altered to cater for modifications that
would benefit from the Word 2007 features can be done as the issue arises.
It seems you are just making a lot of unnecessary work for yourself, but
then I'm not paying you .....

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



"Graham Mayor" wrote:

Why bother converting them? Word 2007 will open them and edit them
as they are?

[StefanKZVB]

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

2. .doc might become unusable with a future version - like Powerpoint
2007 can't read Powerpoint 4.0/95 files

This has never happened with Word before. Word can (still) open all previous
versions.

I wouldn't have expected to become old Powerpoint formats unusable. And I
hope it will never happen to .doc but who knows?!

3. The "native" mode of applications is likely to be more tested /
bug-free / stable. Here's an example of a buggy implementation of a
compatibility featu
http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...=en-us&m=1&p=1

It's a bit of a leap to believe that may be true, given that Word's doc
format has been around mucvh longer, but I take your point. Do your old

You can simply try out and reproduce this issue yourself. MS can also
reproduce it.

documents have this problem, or only new ones you are creating in
compatibilty mode? If not I still see no reason to mass convert old
documents. Those that need to be altered to cater for modifications that
would benefit from the Word 2007 features can be done as the issue arises.
It seems you are just making a lot of unnecessary work for yourself, but
then I'm not paying you .....

The problem from the link can't be worked around for us by unsetting the
compatibility option since we are using third party fax software that
requires this compatibility option to be set. We set the option by a macro
before printing the document to a fax printer and reset it to its old value
afterwards. The compatibility option worked fine with Word 2000.

But it's just an example for issues that might occur with compatibility
options since they are less used and tested than native mode. And when
problems occur everybody (including MS if you are not a very important
customer to them i.e. due to the number of clients affected) will advise you
to switch to native mode (when the issue finally is tracked down to a
compatibility option which might be a long way)

So why not avoid those problems from the beginning? We don't want our
users/IT department to struggle with issues in compatibility mode.

[dwarkin]

We have about 40.000 files in older
Office-formats whereof, about 25.000 in Office 95, about 15.000 in
Powerpoint-Presentations and WORD-Handbooks. Where may I send them to have
them converted? All of our former letters, a large part of our presentations-
and handbook-archiv is in-accessible for Office 2007.
Besides, Graham, WORD cannot show WORD-for-DOS-files properly; so Microsoft
desides whether and how long we users are entitled to access our files after
years. This is contrary to any compliance worldwide.
Microsoft may learn: we users MUST have access to older files without
restrictions. There are two main reasons to use computers: to work more
effectively and to be able to access former datas without restrictions. As
long as I can open PDFs from any year but not my Office-files after 5-10
years, even the XPS-Format will not be intruduced in companies, at least not
in europe ;-(((((
I think we all would be very greatfull if microsoft would release a
compatibility-pack for older files very urgently and would focus this problem
in this and any later office-version as a main feature for
business-customers. This must assure two main features: to view any older
file-type (preferably even the olde DOS-files still stored in many companys)
and to convert those for further use.


"Graham Mayor" wrote:

StefanKZVB wrote:
1. You can't use some Word 2007 features with doc files.

No you can't but your old documents don't have Word 2007 features.


2. .doc might become unusable with a future version - like Powerpoint
2007 can't read Powerpoint 4.0/95 files

This has never happened with Word before. Word can (still) open all previous
versions.


3. The "native" mode of applications is likely to be more tested /
bug-free / stable. Here's an example of a buggy implementation of a
compatibility featu
http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...=en-us&m=1&p=1

It's a bit of a leap to believe that may be true, given that Word's doc
format has been around mucvh longer, but I take your point. Do your old
documents have this problem, or only new ones you are creating in
compatibilty mode? If not I still see no reason to mass convert old
documents. Those that need to be altered to cater for modifications that
would benefit from the Word 2007 features can be done as the issue arises.
It seems you are just making a lot of unnecessary work for yourself, but
then I'm not paying you .....

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



"Graham Mayor" wrote:

Why bother converting them? Word 2007 will open them and edit them
as they are?

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Dwarkin,

MS does have a bulk conversion tool for moving to Office 2007 as part of the Office Migration Planning Manager, from the Office 2007
Resource Kit
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office...5842f1033.mspx

It is more effective on Office 97-2003 files than on earlier versions.

DOS did not, without an addin, use truetype fonts for layout and Windows (and Office) do use those, so it's not a complete surprise
that the layouts of DOS Word files, not yet converted may not retain the layout.
There are a number of 3rd party services and products available to let you either do your own conversion or to do the bulk
conversion for you. As they generally have no printed reference for how the original file should have looked, the results are
sometimes a bit unexpected.

MS has not prevented you from accessing your files, it doesn't provide active support for older versions, generally after about 10
years, in part because a number of the older converters were written and owned by 3rd party companies no longer around. MS also has
not made it a secret of the timing when certain versions will revert to '3rd party' or 'owner responsibility' for compatibility
Car manufacturers do not continue to provide parts for older cars after a number of years and trying to find even manuals for older
electronic gear, appliances etc is also a bit of a challenge (my Microwave is very low wattage by today's standards and I have to
manually calculate the cooking time as what's on product packages is based on 1100W values it seems - while it's inconvenient, I
don't expect the mfr's to support the older stuff g. In general, businesses do tend to migrate/upgrade at least once a decade I
would suppose g. Word 97 is a 1996 product and I still use Word v6 and even WordStar v3 on occassion. The last 'update' or life
extension for MS DOS Office versions was basically a Y2K measure.

MS has, as a default setting, to improve security, stopped access to some of the older file formats as they are more susceptible to
infiltration and attachment of malignancies that could affect your business.

==========
"dwarkin" wrote in message ...
We have about 40.000 files in older
Office-formats whereof, about 25.000 in Office 95, about 15.000 in
Powerpoint-Presentations and WORD-Handbooks. Where may I send them to have
them converted? All of our former letters, a large part of our presentations-
and handbook-archiv is in-accessible for Office 2007.
Besides, Graham, WORD cannot show WORD-for-DOS-files properly; so Microsoft
desides whether and how long we users are entitled to access our files after
years. This is contrary to any compliance worldwide.
Microsoft may learn: we users MUST have access to older files without
restrictions. There are two main reasons to use computers: to work more
effectively and to be able to access former datas without restrictions. As
long as I can open PDFs from any year but not my Office-files after 5-10
years, even the XPS-Format will not be intruduced in companies, at least not
in europe ;-(((((

I think we all would be very greatfull if microsoft would release a
compatibility-pack for older files very urgently and would focus this problem
in this and any later office-version as a main feature for
business-customers. This must assure two main features: to view any older
file-type (preferably even the olde DOS-files still stored in many companys)
and to convert those for further use.
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[StefanKZVB]

Well, I understand MS does not want to support old formats forever.

On the other hand NOT supporting old formats and forcing customers
to use third-party tools to migrate old documents
actually increases the total cost of ownership for MS Office.

So simply discontinuing a file format is NOT customer friendly at all.

* * *
IMHO discontinuing a file format would be only acceptable if MS would provide
with every new Office version a good (!), easy and powerful tool to convert
ALL files
with not anymore supported formats reliably (!) to the new format.
* * *

The file converter tool provided in the 2007 ORK
does NOT meet these criterias, because:
- it does not convert the newly discontinued PPT 4.0 files
- it skips lots of files as unconvertable
- it has no option to convert to the same directories
not allowing you to have the converted files the same
file system rights.
- ...

Also for many customers there might be legal issues
why old documents must remain readable for decades.

Best regards

Stefan

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Dwarkin,

MS does have a bulk conversion tool for moving to Office 2007 as part of the Office Migration Planning Manager, from the Office 2007
Resource Kit
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office...5842f1033.mspx

It is more effective on Office 97-2003 files than on earlier versions.

DOS did not, without an addin, use truetype fonts for layout and Windows (and Office) do use those, so it's not a complete surprise
that the layouts of DOS Word files, not yet converted may not retain the layout.
There are a number of 3rd party services and products available to let you either do your own conversion or to do the bulk
conversion for you. As they generally have no printed reference for how the original file should have looked, the results are
sometimes a bit unexpected.

MS has not prevented you from accessing your files, it doesn't provide active support for older versions, generally after about 10
years, in part because a number of the older converters were written and owned by 3rd party companies no longer around. MS also has
not made it a secret of the timing when certain versions will revert to '3rd party' or 'owner responsibility' for compatibility
Car manufacturers do not continue to provide parts for older cars after a number of years and trying to find even manuals for older
electronic gear, appliances etc is also a bit of a challenge (my Microwave is very low wattage by today's standards and I have to
manually calculate the cooking time as what's on product packages is based on 1100W values it seems - while it's inconvenient, I
don't expect the mfr's to support the older stuff g. In general, businesses do tend to migrate/upgrade at least once a decade I
would suppose g. Word 97 is a 1996 product and I still use Word v6 and even WordStar v3 on occassion. The last 'update' or life
extension for MS DOS Office versions was basically a Y2K measure.

MS has, as a default setting, to improve security, stopped access to some of the older file formats as they are more susceptible to
infiltration and attachment of malignancies that could affect your business.

==========
"dwarkin" wrote in message ...
We have about 40.000 files in older
Office-formats whereof, about 25.000 in Office 95, about 15.000 in
Powerpoint-Presentations and WORD-Handbooks. Where may I send them to have
them converted? All of our former letters, a large part of our presentations-
and handbook-archiv is in-accessible for Office 2007.
Besides, Graham, WORD cannot show WORD-for-DOS-files properly; so Microsoft
desides whether and how long we users are entitled to access our files after
years. This is contrary to any compliance worldwide.
Microsoft may learn: we users MUST have access to older files without
restrictions. There are two main reasons to use computers: to work more
effectively and to be able to access former datas without restrictions. As
long as I can open PDFs from any year but not my Office-files after 5-10
years, even the XPS-Format will not be intruduced in companies, at least not
in europe ;-(((((

I think we all would be very greatfull if microsoft would release a
compatibility-pack for older files very urgently and would focus this problem
in this and any later office-version as a main feature for
business-customers. This must assure two main features: to view any older
file-type (preferably even the olde DOS-files still stored in many companys)
and to convert those for further use.
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Stefan,

Yes, there are various reasons to need access to the old files. As I mentioned I have and still access files written over 30 years
ago. All of the old files remain readable by the versions of Office that created running under the operating system versions
available then.

No one *forced* anyone to purchase or a use a new version of anything and the transition out of old formats is announced years in
advance, which is pretty good in today's 'throw away' technology age http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle. That the companies
that wrote the old tools are no longer around or that there are potential security holes found in some of those older tools so that
they are discontinued, is just part of that product life cycle. Heck, I still have a case of 8" floppy disks I'll probably
never get to use because someone decided to change sizes g.

============
"StefanKZVB" wrote in message ...
Well, I understand MS does not want to support old formats forever.

On the other hand NOT supporting old formats and forcing customers
to use third-party tools to migrate old documents
actually increases the total cost of ownership for MS Office.

So simply discontinuing a file format is NOT customer friendly at all.

* * *
IMHO discontinuing a file format would be only acceptable if MS would provide
with every new Office version a good (!), easy and powerful tool to convert
ALL files
with not anymore supported formats reliably (!) to the new format.
* * *

The file converter tool provided in the 2007 ORK
does NOT meet these criterias, because:
- it does not convert the newly discontinued PPT 4.0 files
- it skips lots of files as unconvertable
- it has no option to convert to the same directories
not allowing you to have the converted files the same
file system rights.
- ...

Also for many customers there might be legal issues
why old documents must remain readable for decades.

Best regards

Stefan
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[dwarkin]

Thanks, Bob, for the link. But: the "openness" You mention is not the most
of the customers outside companys with large admin-departments do not know at
all that they are going to miss access to elder files by migrating to 2007.
Microsoft -as near to monoply in the field of windows/office- has a
responsibility for information-content worldwide. Imagine paper in libraries
would be unreadable after a decade.
The way to use elder versions of office is unrealistic: You know about the
different problems using several versions of office on one machine.
And what we users don´t understand is: why is it possible to use
2007-formats under office 95 then? What is more likely: customers having
elder files or customers having elder software?
If Your arguments would be right, Microsoft should at least build
virtual-machines for free-download containing a windows/office-version for
any given-up file-typ without licence-restricitons enabeling users at any
time to take those old files into the VM, have them converted to the
today-used formats by scripts and have them printed to PDF or tiff by scripts
for documentation-reason (compliance). E.g.: today there should be at least
to VMs downloadable without license-restrictions: one for DOS and WORD/DOS
and one for win95 or 98 and office95 including the converters for
2007-filetype and scripts for the jobs named. If we admins would build those
VMs, we would violate Microsofts license-provisons.
Microsofts Bill Gates told about the dream of merely managing information
with computers rather than printed on paper. Then, the minimum feature to be
delivered is that customers can trust live-long access without being told
"find own solution". As You compare it to cars etc.: there is a big
difference. Information from yesterday is needed today. Or even mo
information from ancient rome or greece, the bible and so on are still needed
today. An ancient car from rome is not.

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Stefan,

Yes, there are various reasons to need access to the old files. As I mentioned I have and still access files written over 30 years
ago. All of the old files remain readable by the versions of Office that created running under the operating system versions
available then.

No one *forced* anyone to purchase or a use a new version of anything and the transition out of old formats is announced years in
advance, which is pretty good in today's 'throw away' technology age http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle. That the companies
that wrote the old tools are no longer around or that there are potential security holes found in some of those older tools so that
they are discontinued, is just part of that product life cycle. Heck, I still have a case of 8" floppy disks I'll probably
never get to use because someone decided to change sizes g.

============
"StefanKZVB" wrote in message ...
Well, I understand MS does not want to support old formats forever.

On the other hand NOT supporting old formats and forcing customers
to use third-party tools to migrate old documents
actually increases the total cost of ownership for MS Office.

So simply discontinuing a file format is NOT customer friendly at all.

* * *
IMHO discontinuing a file format would be only acceptable if MS would provide
with every new Office version a good (!), easy and powerful tool to convert
ALL files
with not anymore supported formats reliably (!) to the new format.
* * *

The file converter tool provided in the 2007 ORK
does NOT meet these criterias, because:
- it does not convert the newly discontinued PPT 4.0 files
- it skips lots of files as unconvertable
- it has no option to convert to the same directories
not allowing you to have the converted files the same
file system rights.
- ...

Also for many customers there might be legal issues
why old documents must remain readable for decades.

Best regards

Stefan
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[StefanKZVB]

Hi Bob,

what you say would mean you would have to have multiple old computers in a
company
with old Office versions just to keep the old files readable. You don't have
any warranties or replacement parts for these old machines, etc.

In the long way you would even have to
think about strategies on how to transfer unreadable files to the old
machines etc.
That's lots of unnessesary TCO and administrators will eventually hate MS
Office for all the
effort it takes just to read some old files...

Also I think in fact you almost get FORCED to upgrade to new MS Office
versions
either because you receive the new not prefectly readable file formats from
outside.
Or because you need to be able to fix security holes which are
even still in the old Office versions. Though these versions already got
fixed for years over years...

So I really want Microsoft to improve the transitions to new file formats.

BTW: IMHO the main reason why MS created new file formats and the Ribbon
was to get incompatible to OpenOffice. Because those "innovations" are
not really better, just different. Well, in the case of OOXML not just
different but
worse than ODF. But I guess you know about that.

Best regards

Stefan


"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Stefan,

Yes, there are various reasons to need access to the old files. As I mentioned I have and still access files written over 30 years
ago. All of the old files remain readable by the versions of Office that created running under the operating system versions
available then.

No one *forced* anyone to purchase or a use a new version of anything and the transition out of old formats is announced years in
advance, which is pretty good in today's 'throw away' technology age http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle. That the companies
that wrote the old tools are no longer around or that there are potential security holes found in some of those older tools so that
they are discontinued, is just part of that product life cycle. Heck, I still have a case of 8" floppy disks I'll probably
never get to use because someone decided to change sizes g.

============
"StefanKZVB" wrote in message ...
Well, I understand MS does not want to support old formats forever.

On the other hand NOT supporting old formats and forcing customers
to use third-party tools to migrate old documents
actually increases the total cost of ownership for MS Office.

So simply discontinuing a file format is NOT customer friendly at all.

* * *
IMHO discontinuing a file format would be only acceptable if MS would provide
with every new Office version a good (!), easy and powerful tool to convert
ALL files
with not anymore supported formats reliably (!) to the new format.
* * *

The file converter tool provided in the 2007 ORK
does NOT meet these criterias, because:
- it does not convert the newly discontinued PPT 4.0 files
- it skips lots of files as unconvertable
- it has no option to convert to the same directories
not allowing you to have the converted files the same
file system rights.
- ...

Also for many customers there might be legal issues
why old documents must remain readable for decades.

Best regards

Stefan
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Graham Mayor]

As far as I am aware, all the old filters still work to *read* documents in
those old formats, though some are inhibited by a registry switch, which can
be changed - see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938810 and
http://news.office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?a=519.

Some of them will still *write* to those old formats, though there does not
seem much reason to do so.

Most of the older filters are available for download from my web site (cw
registry patches to make them available), though updates tend to contrive to
replace them again.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org




StefanKZVB wrote:
Hi Bob,

what you say would mean you would have to have multiple old computers
in a company
with old Office versions just to keep the old files readable. You
don't have any warranties or replacement parts for these old
machines, etc.

In the long way you would even have to
think about strategies on how to transfer unreadable files to the old
machines etc.
That's lots of unnessesary TCO and administrators will eventually
hate MS Office for all the
effort it takes just to read some old files...

Also I think in fact you almost get FORCED to upgrade to new MS Office
versions
either because you receive the new not prefectly readable file
formats from outside.
Or because you need to be able to fix security holes which are
even still in the old Office versions. Though these versions already
got fixed for years over years...

So I really want Microsoft to improve the transitions to new file
formats.

BTW: IMHO the main reason why MS created new file formats and the
Ribbon was to get incompatible to OpenOffice. Because those
"innovations" are
not really better, just different. Well, in the case of OOXML not just
different but
worse than ODF. But I guess you know about that.

Best regards

Stefan


"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Stefan,

Yes, there are various reasons to need access to the old files. As
I mentioned I have and still access files written over 30 years ago.
All of the old files remain readable by the versions of Office that
created running under the operating system versions available then.

No one *forced* anyone to purchase or a use a new version of
anything and the transition out of old formats is announced years in
advance, which is pretty good in today's 'throw away' technology age
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle. That the companies that
wrote the old tools are no longer around or that there are potential
security holes found in some of those older tools so that they are
discontinued, is just part of that product life cycle. Heck, I
still have a case of 8" floppy disks I'll probably never get to use
because someone decided to change sizes g.

============
"StefanKZVB" wrote in
message ...
Well, I understand MS does not want to support old formats forever.

On the other hand NOT supporting old formats and forcing customers
to use third-party tools to migrate old documents
actually increases the total cost of ownership for MS Office.

So simply discontinuing a file format is NOT customer friendly at
all.

* * *
IMHO discontinuing a file format would be only acceptable if MS
would provide
with every new Office version a good (!), easy and powerful tool to
convert
ALL files
with not anymore supported formats reliably (!) to the new format.
* * *

The file converter tool provided in the 2007 ORK
does NOT meet these criterias, because:
- it does not convert the newly discontinued PPT 4.0 files
- it skips lots of files as unconvertable
- it has no option to convert to the same directories
not allowing you to have the converted files the same
file system rights.
- ...

Also for many customers there might be legal issues
why old documents must remain readable for decades.

Best regards

Stefan
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Stefan,

So you're saying that MS should keep all of the old companies in business, or take over for them when folks retire or sell and
provide parts too so that you wouldn't need to do any planning etc?

I'm assuming you have the same copy machines from 20 years ago, you have the same car from the 80's and no problem with getting
parts, or with running it with leaded gas, or that you have a new car/machine/appliance and fully expect the parts, Beta/VHS tapes
all to work just fine in your DVD drive? Shouldn't your DVD drive be able to read the files you saved to diskettes of any size, or
to a backup tape? g.

For my job, why MS, or apple, or Oracle, or others often raises the questions, mostly rhetorically of 'why did they do *that*!' and
some hair pulling, but in the end the job is to get the thing that someone bought up and running and to figure out how to make it
all happen, with whatever tools that are available. That's not to say that it's uncommon for administrators to be frustrated that
there are folks being upgraded who just 'won't move up to the newest and greatest' (it works both ways, depends a bit on where you
are in the food chain of a particular process).

The advantage of the new file format in general came out to be for many of our folks to be that the files were smaller

It depends on what you're looking for and what you need to get done I suppose on what things are positives and what things are
negatives.
===========
"StefanKZVB" wrote in message news Hi Bob,

what you say would mean you would have to have multiple old computers in a
company
with old Office versions just to keep the old files readable. You don't have
any warranties or replacement parts for these old machines, etc.

In the long way you would even have to
think about strategies on how to transfer unreadable files to the old
machines etc.
That's lots of unnessesary TCO and administrators will eventually hate MS
Office for all the
effort it takes just to read some old files...

Also I think in fact you almost get FORCED to upgrade to new MS Office
versions
either because you receive the new not prefectly readable file formats from
outside.
Or because you need to be able to fix security holes which are
even still in the old Office versions. Though these versions already got
fixed for years over years...

So I really want Microsoft to improve the transitions to new file formats.

BTW: IMHO the main reason why MS created new file formats and the Ribbon
was to get incompatible to OpenOffice. Because those "innovations" are
not really better, just different. Well, in the case of OOXML not just
different but
worse than ODF. But I guess you know about that.

Best regards

Stefan
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Dwarkin,


Most small companies I work with usually do more in depth research on a major software purchase transition and its impact than some
larger companies, as the expenditure of monies is often more 'personal'.

It isn't possible to use the Office 2007 formats with versions of Office older than Office 2000. In part, because of the life
cycle, trying to test with all possible older Windows, not just Office and add-ins, etc configurations isn't really cost effective,
or practical, as the older models aren't being updated any more.

You can certainly create virtual machines if you like, but not sure why it would be Microsoft's job to do it for you. Software
rarely comes with a lifetime warranty, and as far as ancient writings, there are folks that wish it was recorded on better 'storage
media', or that there were still people that spoke older languages so that there weren't multiple interpretations. Many of the
older disks, tapes, etc, may just from time, deteriorate to the point of being unreadable even in the correct device. It happens.
Of course, there are also folks who are new to computers who don't understand why it takes something as big as a 'desktop' machine
to get things done, or why it can't all be done on the pocketPC/Blackberry/Smartphone and for them that's where everything needs to
be, or with no prior experience, where it all starts

While folks have older data, much of it is moved forward with each new version if it's important, or transferred to newer archive
forms. That it may be inconvenient for you to be the one doing that, rather than having it done for you, without any cost, well...
And from experience, if MS did provide a converter, a VM, or scripts, folks would still find that to be problematic because it
didn't do this, or that, or why not this, or why wasn't every possible font included, or why is it different printing on my new
printer than it was on my 20 year old printer It's not possible to meet everyone's wish/want list.

As Graham points out the information can usually still be opened by using, at your risk, the old filters, even with Word 2007. And
the 3rd party converter collections often cost less than one copy of Office.

=============
"dwarkin" wrote in message ...
Thanks, Bob, for the link. But: the "openness" You mention is not the most
of the customers outside companys with large admin-departments do not know at
all that they are going to miss access to elder files by migrating to 2007.
Microsoft -as near to monoply in the field of windows/office- has a
responsibility for information-content worldwide. Imagine paper in libraries
would be unreadable after a decade.
The way to use elder versions of office is unrealistic: You know about the
different problems using several versions of office on one machine.
And what we users don´t understand is: why is it possible to use
2007-formats under office 95 then? What is more likely: customers having
elder files or customers having elder software?
If Your arguments would be right, Microsoft should at least build
virtual-machines for free-download containing a windows/office-version for
any given-up file-typ without licence-restricitons enabeling users at any
time to take those old files into the VM, have them converted to the
today-used formats by scripts and have them printed to PDF or tiff by scripts
for documentation-reason (compliance). E.g.: today there should be at least
to VMs downloadable without license-restrictions: one for DOS and WORD/DOS
and one for win95 or 98 and office95 including the converters for
2007-filetype and scripts for the jobs named. If we admins would build those
VMs, we would violate Microsofts license-provisons.
Microsofts Bill Gates told about the dream of merely managing information
with computers rather than printed on paper. Then, the minimum feature to be
delivered is that customers can trust live-long access without being told
"find own solution". As You compare it to cars etc.: there is a big
difference. Information from yesterday is needed today. Or even mo
information from ancient rome or greece, the bible and so on are still needed
today. An ancient car from rome is not.
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[StefanKZVB]

Hi Bob,

your opinions sound really strange to me:

Do you really expect from companies
with i.e. 1000 clients that pay about 200.000 $ for Office 2007 just for
licenses:
- to like to have a slower Office than before
- to have resources to retrain 1000 users
- AND to rely on third party tools to convert their old documents?
Actually MS is the one who should be able to write the best converters for
their file formats.
The old Office formats are/were closed formats,
and the specs for OOXML are 6000 pages while still being incomplete.
You can't expect a reliable converter from that.

So there's no reason why a third party could write a more trustable
converter than MS!
Quality of the conversion is the main thing a converter must provide.
Even a simple tool "convert2ooxml filename" returning
an errorlevel if conversion failed would be better
than every tool I know of for that purpose from MS now.

Really, if MS wants to keep its pole position in Office software
they have to take more care of the needs of their customers.

And not by increasing TCO unnecessary for migrations.
The folks out there get really annoyed being forced to upgrade
when having lots of troubles during and after transition.

It would be even ok if MS would provide a good converter
which you have to pay for. But it's not ok to release products,
tell how easy the transition is (i.e. Word Team blog) but
in fact that's all just marketing and customers have
to pay for third party products or each one has to reinvent the
wheel to migrate their old files in a reasonable and working way.

Best regards

Stefan



"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Dwarkin,


Most small companies I work with usually do more in depth research on a major software purchase transition and its impact than some
larger companies, as the expenditure of monies is often more 'personal'.

It isn't possible to use the Office 2007 formats with versions of Office older than Office 2000. In part, because of the life
cycle, trying to test with all possible older Windows, not just Office and add-ins, etc configurations isn't really cost effective,
or practical, as the older models aren't being updated any more.

You can certainly create virtual machines if you like, but not sure why it would be Microsoft's job to do it for you. Software
rarely comes with a lifetime warranty, and as far as ancient writings, there are folks that wish it was recorded on better 'storage
media', or that there were still people that spoke older languages so that there weren't multiple interpretations. Many of the
older disks, tapes, etc, may just from time, deteriorate to the point of being unreadable even in the correct device. It happens.
Of course, there are also folks who are new to computers who don't understand why it takes something as big as a 'desktop' machine
to get things done, or why it can't all be done on the pocketPC/Blackberry/Smartphone and for them that's where everything needs to
be, or with no prior experience, where it all starts

While folks have older data, much of it is moved forward with each new version if it's important, or transferred to newer archive
forms. That it may be inconvenient for you to be the one doing that, rather than having it done for you, without any cost, well...
And from experience, if MS did provide a converter, a VM, or scripts, folks would still find that to be problematic because it
didn't do this, or that, or why not this, or why wasn't every possible font included, or why is it different printing on my new
printer than it was on my 20 year old printer It's not possible to meet everyone's wish/want list.

As Graham points out the information can usually still be opened by using, at your risk, the old filters, even with Word 2007. And
the 3rd party converter collections often cost less than one copy of Office.

=============
"dwarkin" wrote in message ...
Thanks, Bob, for the link. But: the "openness" You mention is not the most
of the customers outside companys with large admin-departments do not know at
all that they are going to miss access to elder files by migrating to 2007.
Microsoft -as near to monoply in the field of windows/office- has a
responsibility for information-content worldwide. Imagine paper in libraries
would be unreadable after a decade.
The way to use elder versions of office is unrealistic: You know about the
different problems using several versions of office on one machine.
And what we users don´t understand is: why is it possible to use
2007-formats under office 95 then? What is more likely: customers having
elder files or customers having elder software?
If Your arguments would be right, Microsoft should at least build
virtual-machines for free-download containing a windows/office-version for
any given-up file-typ without licence-restricitons enabeling users at any
time to take those old files into the VM, have them converted to the
today-used formats by scripts and have them printed to PDF or tiff by scripts
for documentation-reason (compliance). E.g.: today there should be at least
to VMs downloadable without license-restrictions: one for DOS and WORD/DOS
and one for win95 or 98 and office95 including the converters for
2007-filetype and scripts for the jobs named. If we admins would build those
VMs, we would violate Microsofts license-provisons.
Microsofts Bill Gates told about the dream of merely managing information
with computers rather than printed on paper. Then, the minimum feature to be
delivered is that customers can trust live-long access without being told
"find own solution". As You compare it to cars etc.: there is a big
difference. Information from yesterday is needed today. Or even mo
information from ancient rome or greece, the bible and so on are still needed
today. An ancient car from rome is not.
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[StefanKZVB]

Hi Graham,

maybe it's me but i can't find the old converters on your web site.
Btw: Do they also allow to read ppt 4.0 files with Office 2007?

Thank you

Stefan

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

As far as I am aware, all the old filters still work to *read* documents in
those old formats, though some are inhibited by a registry switch, which can
be changed - see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938810 and
http://news.office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?a=519.

Some of them will still *write* to those old formats, though there does not
seem much reason to do so.

Most of the older filters are available for download from my web site (cw
registry patches to make them available), though updates tend to contrive to
replace them again.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org




StefanKZVB wrote:
Hi Bob,

what you say would mean you would have to have multiple old computers
in a company
with old Office versions just to keep the old files readable. You
don't have any warranties or replacement parts for these old
machines, etc.

In the long way you would even have to
think about strategies on how to transfer unreadable files to the old
machines etc.
That's lots of unnessesary TCO and administrators will eventually
hate MS Office for all the
effort it takes just to read some old files...

Also I think in fact you almost get FORCED to upgrade to new MS Office
versions
either because you receive the new not prefectly readable file
formats from outside.
Or because you need to be able to fix security holes which are
even still in the old Office versions. Though these versions already
got fixed for years over years...

So I really want Microsoft to improve the transitions to new file
formats.

BTW: IMHO the main reason why MS created new file formats and the
Ribbon was to get incompatible to OpenOffice. Because those
"innovations" are
not really better, just different. Well, in the case of OOXML not just
different but
worse than ODF. But I guess you know about that.

Best regards

Stefan


"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Stefan,

Yes, there are various reasons to need access to the old files. As
I mentioned I have and still access files written over 30 years ago.
All of the old files remain readable by the versions of Office that
created running under the operating system versions available then.

No one *forced* anyone to purchase or a use a new version of
anything and the transition out of old formats is announced years in
advance, which is pretty good in today's 'throw away' technology age
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle. That the companies that
wrote the old tools are no longer around or that there are potential
security holes found in some of those older tools so that they are
discontinued, is just part of that product life cycle. Heck, I
still have a case of 8" floppy disks I'll probably never get to use
because someone decided to change sizes g.

============
"StefanKZVB" wrote in
message ...
Well, I understand MS does not want to support old formats forever.

On the other hand NOT supporting old formats and forcing customers
to use third-party tools to migrate old documents
actually increases the total cost of ownership for MS Office.

So simply discontinuing a file format is NOT customer friendly at
all.

* * *
IMHO discontinuing a file format would be only acceptable if MS
would provide
with every new Office version a good (!), easy and powerful tool to
convert
ALL files
with not anymore supported formats reliably (!) to the new format.
* * *

The file converter tool provided in the 2007 ORK
does NOT meet these criterias, because:
- it does not convert the newly discontinued PPT 4.0 files
- it skips lots of files as unconvertable
- it has no option to convert to the same directories
not allowing you to have the converted files the same
file system rights.
- ...

Also for many customers there might be legal issues
why old documents must remain readable for decades.

Best regards

Stefan
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Graham Mayor]

There are only Word filters on my site http://www.gmayor.com/downloads.htm ,
and Word has never opened PowerPoint files.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org




StefanKZVB wrote:
Hi Graham,

maybe it's me but i can't find the old converters on your web site.
Btw: Do they also allow to read ppt 4.0 files with Office 2007?

Thank you

Stefan

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

As far as I am aware, all the old filters still work to *read*
documents in those old formats, though some are inhibited by a
registry switch, which can be changed - see
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938810 and
http://news.office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?a=519.

Some of them will still *write* to those old formats, though there
does not seem much reason to do so.

Most of the older filters are available for download from my web
site (cw registry patches to make them available), though updates
tend to contrive to replace them again.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org




StefanKZVB wrote:
Hi Bob,

what you say would mean you would have to have multiple old
computers in a company
with old Office versions just to keep the old files readable. You
don't have any warranties or replacement parts for these old
machines, etc.

In the long way you would even have to
think about strategies on how to transfer unreadable files to the
old machines etc.
That's lots of unnessesary TCO and administrators will eventually
hate MS Office for all the
effort it takes just to read some old files...

Also I think in fact you almost get FORCED to upgrade to new MS
Office versions
either because you receive the new not prefectly readable file
formats from outside.
Or because you need to be able to fix security holes which are
even still in the old Office versions. Though these versions already
got fixed for years over years...

So I really want Microsoft to improve the transitions to new file
formats.

BTW: IMHO the main reason why MS created new file formats and the
Ribbon was to get incompatible to OpenOffice. Because those
"innovations" are
not really better, just different. Well, in the case of OOXML not
just different but
worse than ODF. But I guess you know about that.

Best regards

Stefan


"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Stefan,

Yes, there are various reasons to need access to the old files. As
I mentioned I have and still access files written over 30 years
ago. All of the old files remain readable by the versions of
Office that created running under the operating system versions
available then.

No one *forced* anyone to purchase or a use a new version of
anything and the transition out of old formats is announced years
in advance, which is pretty good in today's 'throw away'
technology age http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle. That the
companies that wrote the old tools are no longer around or that
there are potential security holes found in some of those older
tools so that they are discontinued, is just part of that product
life cycle. Heck, I still have a case of 8" floppy disks
I'll probably never get to use because someone decided to change
sizes g.

============
"StefanKZVB" wrote in
message ...
Well, I understand MS does not want to support old formats forever.

On the other hand NOT supporting old formats and forcing customers
to use third-party tools to migrate old documents
actually increases the total cost of ownership for MS Office.

So simply discontinuing a file format is NOT customer friendly at
all.

* * *
IMHO discontinuing a file format would be only acceptable if MS
would provide
with every new Office version a good (!), easy and powerful tool to
convert
ALL files
with not anymore supported formats reliably (!) to the new format.
* * *

The file converter tool provided in the 2007 ORK
does NOT meet these criterias, because:
- it does not convert the newly discontinued PPT 4.0 files
- it skips lots of files as unconvertable
- it has no option to convert to the same directories
not allowing you to have the converted files the same
file system rights.
- ...

Also for many customers there might be legal issues
why old documents must remain readable for decades.

Best regards

Stefan
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[njp]

I see it has been a year since this post, but i would like to know if
Microsoft is going to "fix" this problem or not? We are upgrading to Office
2007 now and just discovered it... after training everyone to use the Convert
button and avoid duplicate files!

"StefanKZVB" wrote:

Jeff,

yes, it's a bug not a feature. Problem is who will ever really clean up the
mess of duplicate files on the network storage with hundreds or thousands ?
What's your suggestion?

It's also documented what to do to get the feature you need:
Simply click on "Save as" instead of "Save" after clicking on "Convert" - so
there will be .docx and .doc files. But for Clicking on "Save" it's
documented to delete the old .doc.

And if the cause of the bug is i.e. some file-locking problem of Word 2007
on network storage it might cause other problems! I think I already
experienced another issue related to this. It can make work harder for
developers of .dotm-Word-Addins.

Stefan

"Jeff Mathewson" wrote:

Stefan,

I don't see this as a bug. But when doing a fast check, I see that it is
one..but a very good bug. In that we are doing massive conversions and need
to keep the DOC files, so as you can guess, converting and keeping the DOC
files is good unlike Excel which does delete the files - which doesn't seem
to have as many conversion problems as Word 2007 does.

The big question is, is this really a bug, or something MS removed. I've
been finding converting from other versions of Word isn't going all that
well and if we lost the DOC files it would be a mess..MS may have seen this
as well and removed the auto delete for Word???? At the end, I hope that
they DO NOT fix this bug.

Jeff.
"StefanKZVB" wrote in message
...
Hi Jeff,

the old .doc files remain on the network storage after conversion by the
user to .docx-format.

Please have a look here for the steps to reproduce the problem:

Word 2007: Convert Doc to Docx problem on network locations

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...=en-us&m=1&p=1

Can you reproduce the problem in your environment?

Stefan

"Jeff Mathewson" wrote:

What issue are you having with the network and Word 2007? Your posts
didn't
really state the problem..and I would be interested to know if it's
something like what we may be having with Word 2007.

[lynn]

Hi there

As NJ (who wrote in Feb) we are just about to migrate from 2003 to 2007 and
have come across the anomoly of the convert option for network files copying
rather than replacing the files.

I carefully followed the correspondance but haven't seen a definitive answer
- is it a bug, is MS fixing it, or is it a "feature"?
Most grateful for support!
Lynn

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Daniel,

Are you using File=Save as and saving to the new name or when you open the document using the Office Button then 'Convert'?

If you use convert the original file should be replaced with the new one (which can be a problem for some folks if they need that)
although the original file name won't be cleared from the listing in File=Open until you close Word.

If you use Office Button=Save and choose a different file name or file type you would get an additional file and retain your
original.

You can add the convert button to your quick access toolbar when you open a .doc file by using Office Button, right click on
'convert' and add it. It will only 'light up' when a document would need to switch from a 2003 to a 2007 format.

There is a batch migration tool for deployments (part of a set of tools, rather than a standalone) but it too creates a new set of
documents as the default, rather than chance losing content).

==================
"Daniel" wrote in message news Is there one step that you can do to change older documents to the 2007
version? The only way I know to do it is to do it one document at a time -
and it reduplicates the document. I just want to convert it. Thanks.
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Lynn,

Are you referring to the Office 2007 migration tools doing the conversion or just opening a document in Word 2007 from a trusted/non
trusted network location?

Are the templates also on the server and are the documents being opened viat a hyperlink or Office Button=Open, or ???

What version of Windows?

=============
"Lynn" wrote in message ...
Hi there

As NJ (who wrote in Feb) we are just about to migrate from 2003 to 2007 and
have come across the anomoly of the convert option for network files copying
rather than replacing the files.

I carefully followed the correspondance but haven't seen a definitive answer
- is it a bug, is MS fixing it, or is it a "feature"?
Most grateful for support!
Lynn
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[lynn]

I am referring to opening a doc in Office 2007 and using the Convert button
from the Office button. The files can be local or on a server. When I use
the convert option, i get a duplicate, but when colleagues (with admin
privileges) do this, the file is replaced. all our normal users (non IT
people) do not have admin rights.
Is there a way to configure it to behave the same for all users (ie. no
duplicates)?
Thanks a million!
Lynn

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Lynn,

Are you referring to the Office 2007 migration tools doing the conversion or just opening a document in Word 2007 from a trusted/non
trusted network location?

Are the templates also on the server and are the documents being opened viat a hyperlink or Office Button=Open, or ???

What version of Windows?

=============
"Lynn" wrote in message ...
Hi there

As NJ (who wrote in Feb) we are just about to migrate from 2003 to 2007 and
have come across the anomoly of the convert option for network files copying
rather than replacing the files.

I carefully followed the correspondance but haven't seen a definitive answer
- is it a bug, is MS fixing it, or is it a "feature"?
Most grateful for support!
Lynn
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Lisa]

Lynn, I am experiencing the exact same problem you are. When you say a
colleague with "admin privileges" do you mean on the local workstation? I
have admin privileges on mine and I still see the two files.

Bob help!!

Thanks
Lisa

"Lynn" wrote:

I am referring to opening a doc in Office 2007 and using the Convert button
from the Office button. The files can be local or on a server. When I use
the convert option, i get a duplicate, but when colleagues (with admin
privileges) do this, the file is replaced. all our normal users (non IT
people) do not have admin rights.
Is there a way to configure it to behave the same for all users (ie. no
duplicates)?
Thanks a million!
Lynn

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Lynn,

Are you referring to the Office 2007 migration tools doing the conversion or just opening a document in Word 2007 from a trusted/non
trusted network location?

Are the templates also on the server and are the documents being opened viat a hyperlink or Office Button=Open, or ???

What version of Windows?

=============
"Lynn" wrote in message ...
Hi there

As NJ (who wrote in Feb) we are just about to migrate from 2003 to 2007 and
have come across the anomoly of the convert option for network files copying
rather than replacing the files.

I carefully followed the correspondance but haven't seen a definitive answer
- is it a bug, is MS fixing it, or is it a "feature"?
Most grateful for support!
Lynn
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Lisa]

Sorry just a couple more things to add:

Do a Convert on a PowerPoint or Word document on either the network or local
disk I end up with two files.
Do a Convert on an Excel file it converts and over writes the .xls file
We have the latest version with the latest patch.

This is going to be so confusing to end users when we roll this out. I am
confused for pete sake.

"Lynn" wrote:

I am referring to opening a doc in Office 2007 and using the Convert button
from the Office button. The files can be local or on a server. When I use
the convert option, i get a duplicate, but when colleagues (with admin
privileges) do this, the file is replaced. all our normal users (non IT
people) do not have admin rights.
Is there a way to configure it to behave the same for all users (ie. no
duplicates)?
Thanks a million!
Lynn

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Lynn,

Are you referring to the Office 2007 migration tools doing the conversion or just opening a document in Word 2007 from a trusted/non
trusted network location?

Are the templates also on the server and are the documents being opened viat a hyperlink or Office Button=Open, or ???

What version of Windows?

=============
"Lynn" wrote in message ...
Hi there

As NJ (who wrote in Feb) we are just about to migrate from 2003 to 2007 and
have come across the anomoly of the convert option for network files copying
rather than replacing the files.

I carefully followed the correspondance but haven't seen a definitive answer
- is it a bug, is MS fixing it, or is it a "feature"?
Most grateful for support!
Lynn
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*